Patriotism, love and treason in the United States during the First World War. Barker manages to give every scene the right climate through inventive use of color. From semi-documentary to cruel melodrama.

Arnold L'Hommedieu and his friends Archie Hartogensis and Hugo Waldemar go to New York to find work after being unfairly expelled from college. Arnold starts off as helpful and idealistic, but after being beaten down by life, he decides he is only after money and becomes an opium smuggler. His pals have fared no better: Archie becomes a drug addict and is in debt thanks to his spendthrift fiancee,...

Sylvia, a model in the shop of a fashionable dressmaker, is introduced to the Hicks family, which recently has acquired a fortune through iron ore deposits discovered on their farm. Octavia Hicks sees in the cultured but unpretentious Sylvia a good match for her son Henry and invites the young woman to visit the Hicks home. Two other visitors, Frank Hayward and his accomplice Annie, are masqueradi...

Pierre Landis is insanely jealous of his beautiful young wife Joan, and his jealousy makes him take a branding iron to her to mark her as his property.

Idealistic young American falls under the influence of Communist agitators.