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Johnny, who is a returning veteran unable to adjust to his old life in his home town, succumbs to the pitch of a Ku Klux Klan organizer. It is only after he has worn the Klan sheet, and gone out on some raids, that he begins to realize what he has let himself in for; he is filled with horror and remorse when he sees the homes of neighbors burned, an old friend who defies the Klan killed, and his own wheel-chair father badly beaten. He meets with the State prosecutor, admits his own participation, and agrees to help bring down the Klan in his town.

In 1929, middle-class bank clerk Eddie Clark, unhappy with his lot in life and jealous of prosperous George Bates, an ex-suitor of his loyal wife Agnes, steals $200,000 from his bank, with intentions of he and Agnes being in Mexico before the theft is discovered. Agnes tries to persuade him to return the money to no avail. He is caught and sent to prison without revealing the hidden location of the loot, figuring to get it and live in luxury when his ten-year term is over. His case has received much publicity and nearly every inmate in the prison attempts to wrest the information from him. Gangsters on the outside arrange with convicts Clyde Sutter and Butch McQuinn to get the secret from him. Agnes, who has taken a waitress job in a nearby city, is also trying to find the money with the intention of returning it and getting Eddie a reduced sentence. Sutter's plan is to involve Eddie in a prison break and turn him over to the gangsters on the outside. Butch is shot during the break, and Eddie is the only one to escape. He meets Agnes in an old warehouse but she has been trailed by gangsters Kelvin and Benson. They beat him up but his life is saved by the arrival of the state police. He is returned to prison with an additional five years added to his sentence. He is released in 1947 and makes his way to the money's hiding place - a cemetery plot he had bought in 1929.