Newspaperman Bruce Corey returns from World War I with new ideas and wants to start his own tabloid. For want of other financing, he takes on as silent partner Merrill Lambert, gangland gambling kingpin. Thus is born the New York Mercury. Though its standards are not of the cleanest, Corey does fight to keep his paper's voice independent of Lambert. The two men's clash reaches a climax just as unsuspecting young reporter Tommy becomes Lambert's rival for lovely Gail Fenton.