Lee is a fresh young kid from the South when he gets a job with The Press. His first assignment on gangsters gets his name in the paper, the police on a raid and Lee in the hospital.
Jeremy Wales, a crook who stays on the safe side of the law but bends it whenever possible,has tricked short-sighted John 'Dad" Saunders to sign a note for ten thousand dollars instead of the one thousand that Saunders borrowed to work his "Rose o' My Heart" mine.
Katusha, a country girl, is seduced and abandoned by Prince Nekludov. Nekludov finds himself, years later, on a jury trying the same Katusha for a crime he now realizes his actions drove her to.
A truck driver "too lazy to work and too nervous to steal" gets mixed up in racketeering. Naturally his underhanded business practices make him a pillar of the community.