Plot

After inheriting his grandfather's estate, John Wright rides through a wooded area and sees Martha Hobbs struggling with Ralph, the man whom her heartless father wants her to marry. John beats Ralph and returns Martha to her shabby home. After Martha's mother dies, Martha goes to the city and is befriended by an aged woman. When Wright, investigating his inherited property, finds the women living in a squalid tenement, he builds the Wright Industrial Home, an ideal community-oriented workplace. After Wright hears Greta Carr lecture about ancient Greek life, he convinces Carr to create with him a modern Grecian colony on his estate. The villagers are shocked by the colony's scantily clad dancers. Learning that Martha lives there, Ralph leads a mob to destroy the house. John catches Ralph setting off dynamite and after knocking him out, warns everyone to leave. After the explosion, the mob sobers upon finding Ralph's body. Now tolerated, the colony constructs new buildings, and John and Martha marry.—Pamela Short

John Wright inherits his grandfather's estate and at once sets about the task of investigating the various sources of the income into which he came when the aged man died. While riding through a wooded section, Wright comes upon a girl struggling with a man. Wright dismounts and promptly pounds the man into submission. Then he takes the girl to the squalid place she calls home. The girl whom Wright bad defended is Martha, daughter of Old Farmer Hobbs, a heartless man. At length his wife collapses under the strain, and dies. Martha accuses her father, charging that his meanness killed her mother. Then she leaves to seek a relative in the city. The man whom Wright had beaten is Ralph, a farmer, whom Hobbs ordered his daughter Martha to marry. Arrived in the city, Martha learns that the person she seeks has gone. An aged woman in the shabby room, however, proves a real friend, and takes the girl Martha to live with her. While investigating his properties, John Wright comes upon the aged woman and Martha. The squalid tenement conditions lead Wright to establish an ideal working place, known as the Wright Industrial Home. Martha and her elderly companion are established in the home, where they fit into the happy community life which the Wright Industrial Home has brought into being. John Wright hears a lecture on the life of the ancient Greeks, by Gerta Carr. He is enthusiastic about her doctrines and proposes that he and she join forces in the formation of a modern Grecian colony. He agrees to supply the necessary money, provided she will provide the teaching. She accepts and plans at once are formulated. In the village in which Martha lived John Wright establishes the colony in one of the spacious houses, which he inherited. All members are dressed in the flowing garb of the ancient Greeks. Among those at the colony supervised by John Wright and Gerta Carr is Martha. As she left her squalid home to join the exponents of Grecian life, she was seen by Ralph, who had gone to the city to seek her. A blow from John Wright's fist kept Ralph from molesting the girl. The arrival of the cult in the village was the cause of scandal galore. The thought of young men and women cavorting in scanty attire struck horror to the morals of the staid and gossipy townsfolk. Cleverly Hobbs and Ralph fan the spark of outraged dignity among the villagers into a flame, until it reaches such proportions that a mob is formed. In violent protest against the Greek exponents, the mob storms the home of the cult. The infuriated villagers charge across the lawn into the house where John Wright and his colony await them. In the mob is Ralph, who has planned a terrible revenge. Under his arm he carries a box of dynamite. As the house is stormed, Ralph goes to a deserted room, where he places his blast and lights the fuse. He is caught in the act by John Wright. Ralph is choked and left unconscious, while Wright, warning the others, friend and foe alike, flees for his life. Barely have the members of the cult, and the villagers emerged from the palatial structure, when the dynamite explodes, wrecking everything. The explosion quells the mob's spirit. Side by side, townsfolk and the colonists explore the ruins, where they find the charred remains of Ralph who died by the blast his own hand had set. Penitent, Hobbs kneels at the side of the boy and the others withdraw. From the ruins of the home rises a place more beautiful than the structure the blast had destroyed. The happy life of the cult is resumed. John Wright and Martha find their friendship has grown to love, and as the picture fades out the lovers can be seen walking together on the beautiful lawn with their arms encircling each other.—Moving Picture World synopsis