The Capitol 1919
Margaret Kennard takes her baby daughter Agnes and leaves her husband Eustace for James Carroll. Upon discovering that James is a thief, she leaves him, joins the Salvation Army, and places Agnes in a convent. Twenty years pass. Agnes marries young Congressman Blake. James is now a lobbyist trying to prevent Blake from passing an anti-profiteering bill. Attempting to help her husband, Agnes sets out to prove that James is a scoundrel.

The Volcano 1919
Ruth Carroll, a schoolteacher in New York's Lower East Side, meets Bolshevist Alexis Minski at her grandfather's bookstore. After Ruth complains to her superintendent about undernourished schoolchildren, Minski's ravings cause her suspension, and she joins the Reds. Meanwhile, Captain Nathan Levison, returning from the Argonne, is assigned by the Secret Service to investigate New York's radicals. While visiting the Carrolls to announce the imminent arrival of Ruth's brother Davy, who saved Levison's life but lost his foot, Levison falls in love with Ruth. Chagrined, Minski convinces Ruth that Levison plans to arrest her and her grandfather, whereupon Ruth furiously requests that Levison be killed. After Governor Alfred E. Smith signs a bill making it illegal to display the Red flag, the Bolshevists plot to assassinate him, the Mayor of Seattle, and Attorney General Alexander Palmer, but Davy, with other soldiers, break up the meeting.