When Cash Darwin is released from prison after serving five years for racketeering, he vows revenge on Charles Putnam, the crusading owner of the Clarion , the newspaper that obtained the evidence to convict him. While Cash is traveling to the Clarion building, Putnam is visited by reporter Jim Parker, who is working undercover as a member of Mike Reardon's gang in order to expose Reardon's deals with corrupt city officials. Reardon, who is infuriated by Putnam's campaign against him, orders his men to rough up the Clarion 's street vendors. Cash arrives at the Clarion building as one such raid is occurring and he aides a young boy, Tommy Blake, who is being attacked. Tommy is impressed with Cash's quick fists and thanks him. Cash then goes to Putnam's office and threatens him with a gun, after which Putnam advises him to turn on the radio so that no one will hear the fatal shot. Cash acquiesces to Putnam's request for a last meal, and the pair go to a restaurant with Cash's pal, T-Bone. There, Reardon's henchman, Kinsella, misinterprets Cash's sitting with Putnam and warns him not to take sides in the war by helping out Putnam. Cash is further aggravated by police who question him about carrying a gun, but Putnam alibis him by saying that Cash works for him. Cash's gratitude does not dissuade him from his revenge, however, and he realizes that the best way to ruin Putnam is to destroy his beloved newspaper. Putnam offers Cash the job for real, and he accepts. As time passes, Cash and Tommy become pals, and Cash hires a bunch of toughs to protect the Clarion vendors. The paper pays the men one hundred dollars a week, eighty of which Cash pockets for himself and T-Bone. Cash takes Tommy in after the dog he gave the boy gets him kicked out of his lodgings, and he does his best to become a real father. At the same time, he makes a deal with Reardon to destroy the Clarion from the inside, even though he tells T-Bone that he is going straight. Cash reveals Jim's identity to Reardon, thereby sealing the reporter's fate. When Cash returns home, he discovers that Tommy has found out about his grafting money from the paper, and the boy bitterly denounces him. After Tommy storms out, Cash plants a bomb in the Clarion 's new printing presses, then goes to Putnam's house for dinner. There, Putnam gives him a photo showing him being threatened with a gun by Cash in his office, which was taken when Cash turned on the radio as Putnam suggested. Cash realizes that Putnam is a square shooter, because he could have used the photo to have Cash reincarcerated, and he rushes to stop the bomb. Reardon's men have arrived first, however, and have wounded Tommy while starting a fire. Cash takes Tommy to the hospital, settles with Reardon and Kinsella in a fistfight, then returns to the Clarion . After learning of Jim's death, Putnam enters the blaze to retrieve the evidence Jim collected, and his life is saved by Cash. Cash then disables the bomb but is caught in the fire. Later, Reardon's gang is arrested, and Putnam assures Tommy that Cash died a true hero.