Sonya Mendel (nicknamed Salome because of the string of scalps she wears at her belt!) is the daughter of poor Jewish immigrants on New York's Lower East Side. Clever and pretty, she works as a reporter for the Jewish Daily News. She pursues John Manning, a wealthy non-Jewish philanthropist who has been conducting a campaign against graft on the Lower East Side. They marry, but Sonya is in debt to the very same loan sharks whose grip on the neighborhood John has been trying to break. Will they succeed in blackmailing John into giving up his fight? Based on the novel by Anzia Yezierska, which was in turn inspired by the exploits of a real woman, Rose Pastor Stokes.