John Sharon, a steel magnate is immensely successful from the worldly point of view, while Ed Young, his humble employee, views himself as a failure because his income shrinks as his family responsibilities increase. Sharon's only son is a drunken disappointment, his wife becomes alienated from him, and his daughter falls critically ill. Young, while visiting Sharon, learns to his dismay that his own beloved daughter is very sick. Some professional agitators induce him to attend an anarchistic meeting, and he is prevailed upon to "remove" Sharon as an enemy of mankind. The night the millionaire's daughter dies, his own recovers; and he confronts Sharon just as he returns shaken from the death-bed scene. With wonderful coolness and sympathy Sharon convinces the would-be assassin that he has a right to happiness be has never enjoyed. The picture of his palatial home and empty heart, stays the assassin's knife and leads to a better deservance of the opportunities of life.