When the United States enters World War I, John Stanton wants to enlist, but his sick mother prevents him from going "over there" by telling him that the shock of his leaving would kill her. Frustrated when his friends and his fiancée, Virginia Lee, label him a slacker, John goes on a drinking spree and later is put into the room occupied by Alfred Werner, a German spy in the confidence of the elder Stanton, a munitions manufacturer. When John learns of Werner's plot to secure Godfrey Stanton's formula for a powerful explosive, he foils the plan and rescues his father at the risk of his own life. John's mother, realizing the necessity of defeating the Germans, sends her son off to war with her blessing.