civic government, but it was his battles against communism that garnered him the most publicity, at least in his first year in office. Unemployed men in the federal relief camps had been organized by Communist agitators into the Relief Camp Workers' Union. They struck on 4 April 1935 and arrived in Vancouver on boxcars shortly thereafter. The men stayed in Vancouver for two months, marching daily in protest of relief camp conditions. On one occasion, they entered the Hudson's Bay Company Department Store to publicize their grievances to shoppers. The police came to evict the men, and a bloody clash ensued. After that incident, the unemployed congregated at Victory Square Park, where McGeer came and read the Riot Act. The camp strikers left the city after two months to begin the On-to-Ottawa Trek. They felt they accomplished all they could in Vancouver and voted to take their grievances directly to Prime Minister R. B. Bennett. Shortly before the trekkers left, another Communist-led strike broke out on the waterfront, culminating with another bloody clash that became known as the Battle of Ballantyne Pier. Gerry McGeer treated these protests not as strikes, but as an attempted Bolshevik uprising. Although he came from a background as an iron molder and union representative, he came to be seen as an enemy of organized labour because of these events. McGeer organized elaborate celebrations to mark Vancouver's golden jubilee in 1936, which was controversial in the midst of the depression. While some applauded his efforts to boost civic pride as a positive step towards bringing back prosperity, others denounced extravagances such as a $35,000 fountain for Stanley Park's Lost Lagoon while the city teetered on the edge of bankruptcy. McGeer is also credited with the construction of Vancouver City Hall, a landmark Art Deco building funded in part by a baby bond scheme conceived by McGeer. Monetary reform In the early part of the Great Depression, McGeer became a zealous student of economics and soon became obsessed with monetary reform as the answer to the economic crisis. He eventually came up with his own theories, which he cobbled together from the work of John Maynard Keynes, Abraham Lincoln, and the Bible. (Williams, 312) On one occasion, he hypothesized that international "money power" was financing Communists activities in Vancouver. Another time he testified before the government that Abraham Lincoln was assassinated by international bankers opposed to the