Egg Thrower Targets Wendell Willkie

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During Republican candidate Wendell Willkie’s 1940
visit to Huntington an egg was thrown at him but
 missed its target, instead splattering on the
 hood of his car. This photo of the scene
was distributed to newspapers
 nationwide.

 Photo courtesy James E. Casto

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When Franklin D. Roosevelt sought an unprecedented third term as
U.S. President, the Republican Party nominated Wendell Willkie,
a hard-hitting opponent of FDR’s New Deal
policies, to run against him.

Traveling tirelessly during his 1940 campaign, Willkie spoke
 in countless communities large and small, often drawing
enormous crowds. Speaking from the front steps of
Huntington City Hall on Oct. 29, only days
 before the election, he drew an estimated
 43,000 listeners, said to be the biggest
 crowd in the city’s history.

Willkie traveled to City Hall in a motorcade that delivered him from the Huntington
 Chesapeake & Ohio Station where he had arrived aboard a special C&O train.
 As the motorcade made its way through the downtown it attracted thousands
 of curious onlookers, eager to catch a glimpse of Willkie.
 Included in the crowd was a young man who tried to hit
the candidate with a tossed egg. He missed.

“Only one untoward incident marred the line of march to Government Square,”
reported The Herald-Dispatch. “Near Fifth Avenue and Tenth Street
a youth identified by Patrolman D.K. Altizer as Georg Lipton, 18,
of 929 Fifth Avenue, threw an egg at the Willkie car. He was
 arrested and charged with disorderly conduct. Mr. Willkie
turned around and glanced briefly from the direction
in which the egg was thrown. His car did not stop.”

On Election Day, Roosevelt easily defeated Willkie by 5 million votes.
 And despite the record-setting Huntington crowd that turned
out to see and hear Willkie, FDR carried Cabell County
 by a vote of 27,806 to Willkie’s 20,273.

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Note:  This Article and picture appeared in the Herald-Dispatch Newspaper on Jan. 02, 2024.

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