Nation Aflame

Roland Adams, a crooked former mayor, and his fellow conmen, Frank Sandino, Wolfe, Wilson and Walker, are run out of a town by a mob upset at their phony land selling racket. After thinking about the mob, Sandino, the fast-talking hawker of the group, gets an idea to form a secret lodge, the Avenging Angels, based on intolerance of religion and prejudice against "foreigners." They hope to attract thousands of people they think of as "suckers," who are suffering from the Depression. Adams visits his daughter Wynne in Middleton, hoping that she will support them financially until they get members. During a party for Bob Sherman, the district attorney, Sandino, now calling himself "Sands," expounds on the way to save the country's youth through reverence to the flag and the constitution, protection of American unemployed, the security of the home and an absolute boycott against foreigners. Although Bob fears that Sands's inflamatory ideas will only lead to mob violence, Wynne, fascinated with Sands, gives money for the Angels. Soon many Middleton citizens have paid twenty-five dollars for the initiation fee, and in black cloaks and hoods, they swear allegiance to their superiors. Following an outbreak of violence, ruination of property and strikes, Bob argues with Wynne, who often dates Sands, and she walks out. In the next two years, Sands has Adams elected governor, and they infiltrate every public office with Avenging Angels. On the eve of Adams's re-election campaign, Sands calls upon his followers to eradicate newspaper publisher Harry Warren, who has published Bob's accusations that the leaders operate for personal gain. Sands has unemployed lodge member Dave Burtis, who is a friend of Warren's, bring Warren to a car filled with Angels. They drive Warren to a clearing in a wood and, in a ceremony, kill him. After Bob matches the type on an anonymous note to that of a job application, which Dave's wife Mona typed for him, Dave is arrested for murder. Mona pleads with Sands to save him, but Sands tries to kiss her. To protect herself, she pulls out a pistol, and in their struggle, she is killed. Dave, freed for lack of evidence, finds her, and her death is ruled a suicide. When hundreds of hungry men and women wait outside the governor's mansion for Adams to sign a relief bill, which Sands orders him to refuse, Adams, angry that Sands wants to marry Wynne, tells the crowd from his balcony that he will sign the bill. Dave, acting on Sands's orders, shoots Adams, and he is in turn killed by police. Wynne then offers to infiltrate the lodge. She forms a women's auxiliary, and with its success, Sands is encouraged to form a national movement. After she disrupts a meeting by coming out of Sands's bedroom in a robe, rumors spread about them. When Tommy Franklin, the head of the youth division, questions Wynne about the rumors, she does not deny them, and Tommy tells the other youth leaders that Bob's charges are true. Angel-bolters help Bob, who is running for governor against Wilson. To further ruin Sands, Wynne entices him to an evening of drinking. Early in the morning, they return to her home and continue drinking. When Sands sees the press arrive for a conference that Wynne earlier scheduled, he realizes it is a frame-up and pulls a gun. Police shoot Sands, and Bob, putting on an act, indignantly rebukes Wynne. The Avengers then burn effigies of Wynne and Sands. Bob proposes to Wynne, but she says that because the people have to believe in him, they can't reveal the frame-up. She tells him, however, that sometime they will be together. As the President of the United States rides with Bob, now governor, in his inaugural parade, he acknowledges that the nation owes Wynne a debt of gratitude that it can never publicly repay, and Wynne, in a veil, watches from the side. The president tips his hat to her, and she lifts her veil. Bob then removes his hat, and Wynne, teary-eyed, blows him a kiss, then moves back into the crowd as she breaks down and cries.