Jack Armstrong, a naive Midwesterner and former chicken farmer, runs into difficulties when he tries to open a coffee house in New York City without paying protection money to racketeer Sal and his associates. Armstrong's lawyer, T. R. Kingston, is also associated with Sal and is secretly paying off the mobster. Armstrong's moral indignation invokes Sal's wrath, and Jack is kidnaped and placed in a mental institution before he is finally able to obtain evidence that he is being harassed by criminals. Jack and his girl friend, Denver, discover that the crime commissioner is the real head of the graft racket, and, with the help of Kingston, they turn the tables on him. In the process, however, Jack loses his own integrity and becomes the biggest grafter of all.