Two families, abolitionist Northerners the Stonemans and Southern landowners the Camerons, intertwine. When Confederate colonel Ben Cameron is captured in battle, nurse Elsie Stoneman petitions for his pardon. In Reconstruction-era South Carolina, Cameron founds the Ku Klux Klan, battling Elsie's congressman father and his African-American protégé, Silas Lynch.

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

A Scots-Irish lad comes to America hoping to find his fortune. On the sea voyage he meets and falls for a lovely young girl, but they are parted on arrival. Years later, in the Kentucky town where he has settled and prospered, he meets the girl again, and both sparks and complications arise.

Two young girls are sent away to live with their uncle, which sets off a chain of events resulting in an Indian attack on the town.

Lupino Delchini, a waiter in a little restaurant, is discharged for giving food to a penniless beggar, and Detective Hartley rewards the Italian by getting him an appointment as pound master. Flora is attracted to Lupino by his kindness, but when he adopts a small Belgian boy, he falls in love with Madame Maureveau, whom he believes to be the boy's mother.

Jim Kyneton, once a member of an outlaw gang, joins the Texas Rangers and is forced to track down his former friends and his half brother Nick, who have been robbing a gold mine.

Terry Dunniva, a retired sea-captain living in Marblehead, Massachusetts, adopts two children, Chrystal and Ned. As the girl grows to womanhood, Terry realizes his fatherly-love had grown to something stronger. He asks her to become his wife. Chrystal, who is in love with her foster-brother, consents rather than destroy Terry's happiness. On the day of their marriage, Ned returns from a long voyage with the intent of making Chrysal his wife. And, he, too, rather than destroy the happiness of his adopted-father, leaves to embark on an Artic voyage that might mean his death. When Terry learns of the sacrifice both Chrystal and Ned are making on behalf of his happiness, he takes Ned's place on the voyage and gets both to pledge that if he does not return, they will marry each other.

Two sisters are separated when their parents divorce.

Harry's bride is murdered at their wedding along with Harry's mother and father, and the good-hearted outlaw turns grimly malevolent.

Bill Henry Jenkins is a country boy on the lookout for a good career. He faces numerous obstacles, including losing his sales job when his bicycle is lost. A bigtime poker game turns out to be the key to Bill Henry's success.

Reporter Muriel Manning succeeds in rounding up Mrs. Madison who murdered gambler Howard Trimble. But after listening to her story of Trimble’s degradation and threatened blackmail of her which drove her to an attempt at suicide during which she shoots him in error Muriel decides never to reveal her identity in print.

Lillian Vale is the naïve and unworldly daughter of minister Josiah Vale. Swept off her feet by handsome Robert Powers, Lillian marries him, unaware that he is constitutionally incapable of fidelity. Led astray by vampish Hattie Lee, Powers follows his new paramour to the Big City -- the first of several bad decisions which culminate in disaster for the errant hero.

The orthodox mother's indomitable will dwarfed the child's individuality, defeating the very purpose it would attain. The girl ran away with an actor and the fearful prayer, "If I ever speak to that man again, may God strike my mother blind," was fulfilled, but in the end the woman was saved from herself.

A young couple struggle to get ahead, the wife always assuaging the troubles of her melancholy husband. As he climbs the ladder of success, he abandons the homely values and begins an affair with a beautiful woman. His wife leaves him, returning to her mother's home where she bears a child. When the husband is abandoned by his lady friend, remorse drives him to find his wife.

When the son of a leader of a Paris underworld family known as The Apaches is arrested and tried in court, the boy's mother asks the judge for mercy, but he refuses. In retaliation, the family kidnaps the judge's young daughter, and raises her to be one of their own, schooling her in the ways of crime.

The prospector had taught the Indian boy the doctrine of peace. When his tribe resisted the attack of another tribe the boy did not take part. The din of the battle, as the horsemen circled them again and again, the moans of men caught under falling horses struck terror in the boy's heart The incensed warriors cast him from the tribe with the brand of a coward. It was then that his opportunity came to follow the white man's wonderful doctrine. "Big love man lay down life for friend,"

A thin gent in formal wear, amid a club or party, reads a book about primitive man after he's ignored by a pretty lady. We see the book enacted: Weakhands loses his girlfriend to Bruteforce, but chances upon a design for a weapon to vanquish his rival and win her back. His tribe sees this and sets him up as their leader. With the club, he fends off various creatures (a winged lizard, a snake, a dinosaur) and a rival tribe led by Monkeywalk. The women even manage to repel an attack. But the rival tribe discovers the secret of the club themselves, and capture the women. Weakhands, sitting in despair, chances upon a new weapon: the bow and arrow.

An innocent country girl, Mary Ellen Ellis, moves to the city with an experienced man, Walter Benton, under the promise of marriage. Once in the city, she finds herself in a "world of crime" but reforms a burglar named Bull Clark. Clark, in turn, saves her from another criminal called "The Weasel," and repays her with his gratitude.

A 1917 film directed by Chester Withey.

Based on Henrik Ibsen's play from 1877.