Acting
George Cantor and Tom Johnson love the same girl; one wins the girl from the other and the loser leaves swearing revenge on his successful rival. A few years later, the two marry. George is a successful doctor; Tom is an unemployed laborer with a wife, a sick baby, and little food at home.
A wealthy but weary Charles Morris visits a friend in the country where he meets two young women: the mercenary Hilda and the sweet Dorothy. Betty subtly steers Charles towards Dorothy. When Hilda attempts to capture Charles's affection, Betty orchestrates a situation where Charles sees Hilda with her other suitor, Mr. Bennett, effectively eliminating Hilda's chances. Charles and Dorothy eventually fall in love and become engaged.
Ada Prentice, a girl in a knitting factory, is forbidden by her parents to marry John Horrocks. She confides in her Aunt Sarah, the oldest worker in the factory. Aunt Sarah tells Ada that she has every right to live her own life and to marry the partner of her own choice. The old woman knows what she is talking about, since in her youth she had given up her chance for happiness by rejecting the only man she could have loved.
Quartus Hembly, a man without a conscience, is the ruler of the town of Copper City, having made himself rich at the expense of his workers. When Donald Keith, a young lawyer, arrives in town, a hidden spring within him is touched after Hembly viciously kicks his dog. Keith refuses to leave town and warns Hembly that he will fight to see that the people get their rights.
Laura Bell runs away from her country home to the city, where she becomes a clerk in a department store. Her brother, Frank, follows her to New York, but is unable to place her. He becomes interested in a settlement house and obtains a position in social service work. Mary Ashton, daughter of the proprietor of the store where Laura works, is shocked to find that her father pays his clerks starvation wages.
The son falls in love with his millionaire father's stenographer, against the parental wishes. To get rid of her influence over Wallace, Burton, Sr., discharges Madge. But the young man follows her and they are married. By so doing he separates himself from his father altogether.
This shows the regeneration of a gang leader, who remains true to his first sweetheart after his change of fortune.
The students at Riverdale Girls' Seminary, although typically well-behaved, care about public opinion and are upset when they learn that Mary Adair, whose father had been convicted of embezzlement, would be attending their school. Mary is shielded by Ruth Graham the most popular girl in school. She is slowly accepted but when she pledges a sorority she is required to spend the night in a “haunted house” and while there learns information that will clear her father.
John Stafford is unjustly arrested on the eve of his marriage for the murder of an old gentleman whose body was found in his guardian's library. The young man is taken to the penitentiary, but eludes his guards and escapes. His sweetheart engages a noted detective who finds a small Hindu image in the hand of the dead man.
Sykes, an American engaged to a poor girl, goes to the Philippines as a teacher, and the girl stays behind to await their marriage. Sykes, after some time has passed, has succumbed to the tropic influences, and is living with a native girl, when one day he hears from the girl back home that she is coming to join him and that she will arrive at dawn next day. An aunt has died and left her a lot of money. Caring more for this coin that the girl, Sykes tries to get rid of the native girl, but she makes a row, and he in fear of losing his girl and her cash, poisons the native girl, who dies. He is about to get rid of the body when a young lieutenant of the U.S. Army shows up with his sergeant, inquiring the way to the trail of Indians, and becomes suspicious of Sykes' uneasiness and finds the dead girl.
Oliver and Elizabeth wed. He is a famous lawyer, careless of his personal conduct, but has implicit faith in Elizabeth. She is a woman of strong mind, a magazine writer of repute, and believes he should guide himself by the same code that governs her. Two of their associates are profligates, Charles, an artist, and Catherine. Oliver trifles with Catherine and this so embitters Elizabeth, that she pretends to receive the attentions of Charles, although it is made clear that she has remained pure. Nevertheless, she purposely permits her husband to believe otherwise. He has considered her like Caesar's wife, but his faith is shattered. A child is born to her and the father doubts its parentage.
Through the efforts of the Rev. John Drummond, who comes to a small western mining town with his little boy, all the saloons are closed. Jim Howe and his daughter, Nell, being unable to carry on a liquor business in the town, move to the mountains, where he runs an illicit still and continues to supply whiskey to the Indians. The sheriff gets on his trail and he is soon placed in the custody of the law. Nell, determining to avenge herself for the capture of her father, fires n shot into a party of hostile Indians, secreting herself in a bush as she does so. The Indians, seeing the soldiers coming, and thinking that they fired the shot, rush at them, but are defeated. This plan of revenge having failed, she makes her way to the minister's home, but is prevented from doing any harm to him by the maternal instinct which rises in her when she sees his little boy praying for his mother in heaven.
The clerk has money to pay the last installment on his home, occupied by his old mother and himself, but meeting a fellow clerk and two girls is "forced" to treat in order to show that he really is no tightwad.
No description available.
Young thief “The Bat” to distract an old bookseller, while his partner, “The Fly,” robs the till, purchases a book at random. Later, after a chase and escape to the Devil's Roost, Old Meg's refuge for thieves, he takes the book from his pocket and is about to throw it aside when the title attracts him, "Electricity Made Simple." Intrigued, the volume opens a new life to him and in time enables him to rescue the bookseller’s daughter Bess when she falls into trouble.
Grinde is a junior partner of a pottery firm. An old chemist, Benjamin Lord, discovers a formula for glazing pottery that is designed to revolutionize the industry. The chemist's grandson, David, takes a sample of the new process to Grinde, who says he will give it consideration. He delegates his foreman, Mole, to steal the formula.
Inspired by his wife Lorna, shiftless William Gordon discovers a welding process worth millions and becomes president of a large corporation. Henry Blake, a friend of Gordon's from his indolent days, is forced to marry when his girl friend Mamie gives birth to a daughter, who is sent to live in a convent.
A trusted laundromat employee is sent to the bank to cash the payroll but is robbed by a couple of thugs then locked up in a closet and cuffed with shirts hand and foot. One thug writes a note on an old cuff to his friend to meet him at the station. When the landlady comes in, she takes that cuff with other wash and sends it at once to the laundry where its discovery makes possible not only the rescue of the prisoner and the capture of the outlaws, who are cuffed in steel.
