Billie Dawn es la novia de Harry Brock, un millonario mafioso. Brock desea convertirse en un miembro respetable de la alta sociedad y está dispuesto a lo que sea con tal de conseguirlo. Pero se siente avergonzado de los malos modales de su novia y de su falta de elegancia y sofisticación. Ésta es la razón por la que contrata a un joven y atractivo periodista para que le dé a Billie un curso de buenas maneras. Gracias a la paciencia y al cariño de su tutor, Billie experimenta una maravillosa transformación.
Jefferson Smith, un joven ingenuo e idealista, que parece fácilmente manipulable, es nombrado senador. Ignora que en Washington tendrá que vérselas con políticos y empresarios sin escrúpulos que le harán perder la fe. Sin embargo, gracias a su secretaria, una joven que conoce muy bien los entresijos de la política, protagoniza en el Senado una espectacular y maratoniana intervención en la que, además de defender apasionadamente la democracia, pone en evidencia una importante trama de corrupción.
In the slums, teenager Frankie Warren hangs out with a rowdy gang who one day knock him out in a fight. In court, the boys refuse to reveal who struck the knockout blow, and all are subsequently sentenced to a reformatory, cruelly run by two corrupt guards. New deputy commissioner Mark Braden arrives determined to change things, but despite the help of Frankie's sister, Mark's reform plans -- and Frankie's future -- may be sabotaged from within.
A recently released prisoner lives alone in his cabin so that his bad temper won't get him back in any more trouble, but his peaceful existence is disrupted when a mysterious woman arrives.
Motion picture actress Doria Dane (Edna Goodrich) gives up her career to play muse to sculptor George Steele (Herbert Evans). With Doria's help, Steele overcomes his Bohemian excesses and stays away from the influence of the jealous but wealthy Mrs. Schuyler (Miriam Folger). He finally achieves success, but he also begins to neglect Doria. When she catches him kissing the dreaded Mrs. Schuyler, Doria decides to leave him. But when she goes to his studio to drop off her farewell note, she discovers another sculptor, Harry North, copying one of Steele's masterpieces. Later she comes over to Steele's studio and, in front of a crowd of people, smashes the statue to bits. Then she takes them over to North's studio and explains that she switched the two statues, and reveals North as a fraud. At the base of the real statue she has left a letter of reconciliation to Steele.