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.

Mildred Harrison lives a quiet life and her two main loves are her rose bushes and her fiancé, Harrison. The story primarily revolves around Mildred's devotion to Harrison and her garden and the challenges their relationship faces.

John Humperdink Stover, otherwise known as "The Varmint" for his pestiferousness or as "Dink" when in special favor, was expelled from a boarding school and sent to Lawrenceville Academy. On the stage on the way to the school he meets a silent man whom Dink sizes up for a salesman and he proceeds to wax eloquent on the subject of his past career and the reason he was expelled from his previous school.

After Bruce Morrison marries Rose Kendall, he receives information that his father is gravely ill, and not to tell him of Bruce's marriage because the father has picked Jane Penfield to be his son's wife. Jane's brother Murray, however, learns of the marriage and demands money to keep the news from Bruce's father.

Newly elected police court judge John Fairbrother is impassioned when it comes to the laws affecting the dives and cabarets of the city, and promises equal justice for all.

Melville Carruthers finally decides to propose to his girlfriend Grace and sets out for her house, but gets a sudden attack of shyness and stops in at a café to calm himself. A fight erupts and Melville is knocked out. He wakes up in his room the following day with a young "cabaret girl" taking care of him. Just at that time Grace and her father stop by, and Melville is unable to explain who the girl is and why she's there. Complications ensue.

Jim Young of Youngstown, Pennsylvania, reads of the German war atrocities and decides to enlist in the British army, thus becoming a forerunner of the American forces that are subsequently to leave for the battlefields of Europe. He begins active training at a camp outside London. While enjoying a few hours of leave, he meets Susie Broadplains , a young woman from Australia. She is flattered by his attentions and their friendship soon blossoms into love. However German plotters plan to destroy an arsenal at night and Sir Roger is inveigled into driving an automobile along a London road with its lights turned skyward to guide the Zeppelins. Jim, wounded and home on furlough, detects Sir Roger on the lonely road, follows and traps him in his cottage. Sir Roger turns his pistol on himself rather than be taken alive. Susie finds the "great love" in service for the cause of democracy and her country, with a greater love in sight.

In order to win the hand of the girl he loves, Ed Swinger creates a phony business to fool her father.

Rosarita, a young relative of the powerful Doña Perfecta in the small Spanish village of Orbajosa, has been betrothed since infancy to her cousin, Pepe Rey Don Jose, although the two have never met. When Pepe comes to visit Rosarita, she immediately falls in love with him, but his offhand remark about the lack of enterprise in the small town alienates Doña Perfecta, and the old woman becomes determined to prevent the marriage.

Three old men -- Judge Moran (George Hernandez), Roger Appleby (Jack Curtis) and Caleb Talbot (Jean Hersholt) -- are the caretakers of a young boy, Daws Anthony (Elwood Bredell). When Ray Preston (Fred Church) comes to the small Southern town where they all reside, he stirs up a load of trouble.

Office worker Ethel decides to host a luncheon party on the office roof while her boss is away. Two male co-workers, Bill and his pal, decide they should be invited as well and join the party uninvited. Ethel, displeased by their intrusion, enlists her other male guests to remove the pair from the roof, conflict of a comic nature ensues.

Brash young Sgt. Gray makes a bet that he can have breakfast with his commanding general. But a couple of enemy spies, intent on infiltrating the training camp, get in the way of Sgt. Gray's plans.

Mason, discharged from jail, promises his wife to lead a new life. While searching for work, he rescues Curly, a newsboy, from the clutches of a tramp, who, in trying to steal the boy's secret hoard, beats him up badly. Mason leaves the now helpless boy in care of his wife, and resumes his search for work.