When Count Peter Turgeneff, his daughter, Nadia, and Paul, his generous-hearted son, came to live in the Governor's palace in the Russian province of Valogda, there was rejoicing among the oppressed race whose home was in the Ghetto.

Adapted from a novel by Larry Evans, Once to Every Man tells the tales of Danny Bolton, a pugnacious, hard-drinking country boy.

"Buttsy" Gallagher is a harmless young product of the slums. In all his life he has never been of the slightest importance. His spirit is so submerged that he has almost forgotten how to get angry. One night the gaiety going on in Judge Winters' home attracts him, and he crouches on the fire-escape to watch it. He becomes interested in the Judge, in his pretty daughter Peggy, in her cousin Flo, in Flo's admirer, the Count, and in Bob Ewing, a struggling young lawyer.

Judge Randolph Legarde becomes a dual personality when he is kicked in the head by a horse.

While waiting on a New York park bench for the return of her friends, country girl Jeanne Sterling meets Forrest Chenoweth, a rich young wastrel who, while drunk, registered for a marriage license with fortune-hunting Helen Dorr. Enchanted with Jeanne's innocence, Forrest proposes to Jeanne, and they are married by an alderman friend of Forrest's with the license that Forrest had taken out with Helen. That night Forrest drinks too much, falls in his room and kills himself. The scandal appears in the papers, forcing Jeanne to confess the marriage to her sweetheart Robert Pitcairn. However, Helen, in an attempt to acquire the Chenoweth fortune, claims to be Forrest's widow, thus disgracing Jeanne.

When Roberta Carruthers' father, Capt. Carruthers, is killed in France during the war, she comes to live in the US with her uncle. When she finds out that her uncle is under the impression that his brother had a son and not a daughter, she decides to disguise herself as a male, and calls herself Bob.

Margot, the motherless daughter of a New England fisherman, dreams of a better life. After rescuing the wealthy Jack Rutledge's mother, Margot is taken in by the family. Jack and Margot fall in love against the will of his mother and must find a way to marry.

Judge Foster throws his daughter out because she married a circus man. She leaves her baby girl with Professor McGargle before she dies. Years later Sally is a dancer with whom Peyton, a son of Judge Foster's friend, falls in love. When Sally is arrested McGargle proves her real parentage.

Carl Wagner's good wife was dying. His heart bled at the thought of losing her, his life-long loyal helpmate. And his opera was almost completed, after spending months of weary hours to make it perfect. A pretty daughter tried in vain to brighten the overhanging gloom. Finally the composer, after a superhuman effort, and with a soul filled with sorrow, finished the last act of his score and hurried away to the impresario for a hearing. Here he was assured of an immediate reading and the return to his humble tenement was made with a much lighter heart. The doctor paid another visit to his patient and left a prescription to be filled. Carl reached home and realized how much depended upon the medicine ordered to possibly save a life most dear. Taking his cherished violin, the only article of value remaining, he rushed off to the pawnbroker and negotiated a loan.

The backdrop is fifteenth century France, and Charles, Duke of Burgundy has promised his daughter, Princess Mary, that she can marry the man she loves, Prince Maximilian of Styria. But when the Swiss threaten war, the duke is compelled to take back his word and he arranges for Mary to wed the half-witted dauphin of France's King Louis XI .