On the eve of Prohibition, all of New York goes on a spree of drinking and stocking up on liquor. Despite their difference social backgrounds, the two soon fall in love. When Maggie May goes to visit Roger after the war, Kip at first thinks she is a prostitute and tries to throw her out, then is embarassed to find out who she really is. When the Volsted Act outlawing liquor is passed, Wilson refuses to sign it, but it is eventually ratified as the Eighteenth Amendment, much to the consternation of returning soliders. When the Food Control Act goes before Congress, it passes because people think that the grain used for liquor will now make bread for the soldiers. When the United State enters the war, Jerry goes to France, while Kip stays home to help his mother, and Roger, who is 4-F, is happy to stay home because he thinks all wars are insane. Despite the closeness of the election, Wilson eventually wins, leading to a victory binge for Jerry, Pow and Roger. On election night, Roger arrives at the hotel and gives Pow a drink, but Kip refuses. Tarleton campaigns for Woodrow Wilson, while his wife and son hope that Charles Evens Hughes will win and bring in Prohibition. Tarleton, whose husband Pow is also a drunkard, but whose devoted son Kip is a teetotaler. The hotel where Jerry lives is run by hard-working Mrs.
a writer, contacts his friend, newspaperman Jerry Tyler, to say that he is moving North to turn his first novel into a play. After his funeral, Maggie May hysterically tells his father's old drinking cronies that she hopes that every drop of liquor will be destroyed. Overcome by remorse and a victim of delirium tremens, Chilcote finally commits suicide. After a month of abstinence, Chilcote yields to temptation and starts a lenghty binge, during which he gambles away everything the family has. His daughter Maggie May, who loves him very much, wants to help him stop drinking, but he doesn't believe he can.
In the South, in 1916, the wealthy Chilcote family begins to falter as the father, Roger, suffers from years of heavy drinking.
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