Johnny, a newspaper reporter, fails to get an interview with Madam "Z," the deciding witness in a murder trial. The Editor is just handing it to him when Steve, the star reporter, comes rushing in and informs the bunch that Madam "Z" has been kidnapped. The City Editor assigns Johnny to find Madam and get her testimony. The Dastardly Dozen, a band of anarchists, try Sofia Barislov for a breach of authority and find her guilty. She is sentenced to spend forty days and forty nights in a dungeon subsisting on bread and water. But Sofia has a lover among that Dozen and he goes out to get her some dessert to go with her repasts. Sofia's lover is a terrible looking individual and so when Johnny spots him he surmises that he is either an anarchist or a plotter, and follows him to the dungeon. He finds Sofia incarcerated and imagines her to be the mysterious Madam "Z." Johnny shows Sofia his reporter's badge and she takes him for a policeman and screams. The gang makes him a prisoner and Johnny is sentenced to be tortured to death. He is bound to the torture cylinder, studded with spikes which slowly revolves toward the corner of the room. They start the block and leave him to his doom. Johnny is almost in the midst of his last living turn on the torture block when a secret panel opens and out steps one of the supposed plotters. He stops the cylinder and releases Johnny, removes his moustache and reveals himself as a secret service agent, then bids Johnny escape through a secret passage. The passage leads to a basement under a house where Johnny discovers Slick Connors, a politician, with Madam "Z" in his power, telling her that he will keep her prisoner until after the trial. He sees Connors bind her, throw her to the floor and leave. Then Johnny discovers a knothole in the floor, the key to the mystery. He pokes the thing through and whispers into the ear of the captive and Madam "Z" gives him the testimony through the knothole. But when it comes to signing the document, they were stumped. Suddenly Johnny gets a bright idea and writes at the bottom of the document, "signed by the skin of my teeth," pokes a pencil through the hole into the teeth of the woman and holds the paper while she signs her name in this manner. As Johnny comes from under the house, he runs into Connors. A scuffle follows, Johnny trips Connors, notifies the police and makes a flying run to the office. The papers come out with an EXTRA lauding the deeds of Johnny "the star reporter," and he becomes the lion of the hour. -The Concord Daily Tribune (Concord, NC) 28 Apr 1916 p. 4
“Plotters and Papers” is a well conceived burlesque on the Nick Carter Brand of detective story and doing of a wonderful gang of thugs. All sorts of impossible things occur and the reporter of a sensational newspaper is the hero, who is Johnny on the spot when it comes to rescuing the victims of the bandits. Lots of action." -The Daily Arkansas Gazette (Little Rock, AK) 27 Oct 1916 p.4 “Plotters and Papers” this burlesque on jitney-novel detective exploits is moderately amusing. A commendable amount of new business is used and the work of John Sheehan, and Carol Holloway assisted by Mary Talbot, Rea Burger and Dick Rosson is up to their usual standard. -Motion Picture News 18 Mar 1916 p. 1625