The story of a poor young woman, separated by prejudice from her husband and baby, is interwoven with tales of intolerance from throughout history.

Susan, a pretty society girl, bored with her lot in life, reads and decides to use her time and money to help the poor. She founds the Joan of Arc Mission and quickly becomes an easy mark for con men.

A man takes a job in a café, hoping to get to know the pretty waitress working there.

Snub Pollard plays a drunken man-about-town who believes Harold has robbed him. Meanwhile, Bebe has her hands full with a lounge lizard who won't take no for an answer.

Our vagabond hero dons a lifeguard's uniform and madcap antics ensue on the beach, and in the changing stalls!

A young couple attempts to elope, with the bride's irate father in hot pursuit. The train stops briefly and the young man dashes off to find a minister, but before he can get himself and the minister onto the train, it leaves, carrying his bride-to- be away. Now the young man, minister in tow, pursues his bride while her father and a horde of lawmen pursue them both.

A car salesman wants to get marreid but has to make one last sell first.

A counterfeit count is aided in his courtship of the heroine by her father who is overwhelmed by his "title."

To recoup losses from the extravagant roadshow presentations of Intolerance (1916), Griffith would revisit his epic film three years later by releasing two of the film's previously interlocked stories as standalone features, with additional footage and new title cards. The second of these was 'The Mother and the Law', which demonstrates how crime, moral puritanism, and conflicts between ruthless capitalists and striking workers cause ruin to the lives of marginal Americans.

After her father's death, little Briar Rose is taken in by the men at a lumber camp. The girl shows a definite preference for one of the lumberjacks, "Hell-to-Pay" Austin, so he becomes her new "father." Just as much as Hell-to-Pay takes care of Briar, she watches over him, and it is largely through her influence that he gives up hard drinking and needless fighting. Then, when Briar is old enough, she goes away to school and quickly falls in with the wrong crowd. Hell-to-Pay comes after her and takes her away from Doris Valentine, an adventuress who had been teaching Briar the tricks of the trade. When they are reunited, Hell-to-Pay and Briar realize that they are in love, so they decide to change their relationship from guardian and ward to husband and wife.

Betsy Harlow is a hard-working maid in a boarding house. Her dream. however, is to be a detective, a dream she shares with her boyfriend Oscar, a delivery boy for a local grocer. One day a mysterious character named Harry Brent takes a room at the boarding house. Harry, seeing that Betsy is falling for his rather shady charms, persuades her to help him get a box of jewels owned by the Jaspers, an elderly couple who lives across the hall. It turns out that Harry is not quite who he seems; neither, however, are the Jaspers.

A homesteader (Constance Talmadge) shoots a man she believes is a "claim jumper," only to discover he is a government inspector. The film follows her as she tries to protect her claim from schemers while navigating a confusing and overly complicated plot with many side stories.

A 1917 film directed by Edward Dillon.