His formal education ended abruptly, however, when someone threw an apple at a visiting dignitary, Sir Adam Beck, and knocked his silk top hat off his head.

At the outbreak of World War I, Hepburn had already enlisted in the 34th Fort Garry Horse but was unable to obtain his parents' consent to sign up for the Canadian Expeditionary Force.

[1] He transferred to the Royal Air Force and was sent to Deseronto for training but suffered injuries in an automobile accident that summer, followed by being bedridden by the influenza in the fall, both of which kept him from active service.

[2] After the war, Hepburn joined the United Farmers of Ontario (UFO) helping to start its branch in Elgin County, but by the mid-1920s he switched to the Liberal Party.

He once saw a pile of manure situated in a village square, and proceeded to jump on top of it to give a speech, apologizing to the crowd for speaking from a Tory platform.

He never consulted a note, never appeared to prepare a speech in advance, and delivered an array of astounding facts and figures with such an air of assurance that his audience seldom thought to question them.

In a public show of austerity, he closed Chorley Park, the residence of the Lieutenant Governor of Ontario, auctioned off the chauffeur driven limousines that had been used by the previous Conservative cabinet,[2] and fired many civil servants.

[6] Breaking with the temperance stance of previous Liberal governments, Hepburn expanded the availability of liquor by allowing hotels to sell beer and wine.

[8] It was described by Labour Minister David Croll as "the most controversial piece of legislation now on the Statute Books of the Province,"[9] and it came about after federal efforts that had been instituted under RB Bennett's "New Deal" were declared unconstitutional.

[8] The government also made international news by making the Dionne quintuplets wards of the provincial Crown in response to public outrage of plans by promoters to exploit the infants by putting them on display at the Chicago World's Fair.

[12] As Treasurer of Ontario, Hepburn adopted a more aggressive approach in the collection of succession duty on large estates, which resulted in millions of dollars in extra government revenues.

I have to meet the obligations which were handed down to me, and after I sat in his chair in Queen's Park, pinched myself a couple of times and took stock and inventory, I thought of the old adage, "Fools rush in where angels fear to tread," and some of you now who look upon me as the Tax Collector of the Province, probably use language in speaking of my methods of collection which I couldn't repeat before this august and important assembly.

In that regard, in 1936 the Forest Resources Regulation Act was passed to grant the government broad powers for mandating minimum production quotas, maximum limits in line with good forestry practice, reduce licensed acreages that were in excess of requirements, and increase stumpage fees on companies "operating or carrying on business in a manner detrimental to the public interest.

[28] When the Abitibi Power and Paper Company, in receivership since 1932, was ordered into liquidation in 1940,[29] Hepburn appointed a Royal Commission to investigate the matter to determine the best course of resolution.

On April 8, 1937, the CIO-backed General Motors plant in Oshawa went on strike and demanded an eight-hour workday, a seniority system, and the recognition of its CIO-affiliated United Auto Workers union.

Hepburn, then professing a deep concern about radicals among auto workers, was supported by the owners of the plant and General Motors when he organized a volunteer police force to help him put down the strike after Canadian Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King had refused to send the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

[2] Hepburn, thinking that Canada should be doing more to support the war, helped to organize the military districts in Ontario and encouraged men to volunteer when Mackenzie King chose not to introduce conscription.

Now branding Drew's Conservatives as the greatest menace to Canada, he reversed his earlier criticism of Mackenzie King's war effort and campaigned for Liberal candidate General Andrew McNaughton in a 1945 federal by-election.