Self-made man Emerson Boyd of Every-town owns the Boyd Mills, which uses child labor and disregards health regulations, and the Boyd Chemical Company, which manufactures harmful patent medicines. Crooked politician David Duncan, the mills's general manager, misinforms Boyd about factory conditions. After Boyd's beloved daughter postpones accepting the proposal of Matthew Brand, an unambitious rich young man, until he does something for humanity, Matthew reads an exposé of the mills by editor Clifford Cole. He buys Cole's newspaper when Boyd attempts to stifle it and supports the National Tuberculosis Society's proposal to build a sanitarium in Every-town to combat the rise of tuberculosis.
