Oct. 18, 1948: Henry A. Wallace, who had been vice president and a cabinet secretary for President Franklin Roosevelt and, briefly, for President Harry Truman, hatched his own candidacy for president during the 1948 campaign. Running on the ticket of the Progressive Party, which was sympathetic to several left-wing causes, including labor rights, he came to Pittsburgh and spoke at the Duquesne Gardens in Oakland.
But while the arena was crowded, Mr. Wallace was not received hospitably, as he was bombarded by “a ‘shower’ of fresh eggs” during the speech, according to The Pittsburgh Press. The “fresh hen fruit,” as one caption put it, splattered on his shoes and manuscript after apparently being dropped from the ceiling.
Pittsburgh had the dubious distinction of being the first place in the northern part of the U.S. where Mr. Wallace was pegged by foreign objects. But it was something he had, apparently, gotten used to in other parts of the country. He was quoted as saying: “I guess there must be some folks here from the South.”
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