The DuPont Company of Wilmington, Delaware, makers of better things for better living through chemistry, presents the Cavalcade of America. Tonight's star, Richard Widmark, in The Man with the Cargo of Water. Tonight's DuPont Cavalcade starring Richard Widmark as Frederick Tudor takes us back some years to the middle of the last century. The place, a private dining room at the Stag's Head Hotel in Saugus near Lynn, Massachusetts. A gathering of Boston businessmen and ship owners has met to honor one of their number. And now, gentlemen, we arrive at the purpose of our gathering, which is to hear from the man whose enterprise, imagination, daring, and determination to bring to his fellow men one of nature's great blessings have been so convincingly shown forth to all of us, his creditors, during the past 12 months. My friends, I give you The Man Who Paid Us Back, Frederick Tudor. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Saldonstall. Gentlemen, the subject of my remarks is one very dear to my heart and one that came close to being very dear indeed to all of you in another sense. I refer to ice. Yes, yes, to ice. Sweet nature's gift to perspiring humanity. Now let me begin by telling you about a hot August afternoon in 1804. On the porch of my father's home here in Saugus, there were four of us gathered. Elizabeth Sullivan, then my fiancee, and my employer's daughter was on hand, I recall. My brother William, just out of Harvard College, and the Reverend Jonathan Newberry on a pastoral call. Mr. Newberry expressed the sentiments of all present when he said, Ah, dear me, it certainly is hot. Oh, it certainly is. Yes, yes, indeed. I do believe our New England weather's changing. It's becoming positively tropical. Well, scarcely that. Trying as these temperatures are, I've known worse. Just this summer. And where was that, Mr. Newberry? In the West Indies, Frederick. I arrived at our Mission Hospital during a young fever epidemic. I assure you the trials of summer in Saugus are as nothing compared to that terrible experience. Well, fortunately, we have our blessings along with our trials thanks to the ice from Father's pond for here comes Brother Will with a lemonade. Here you are, folks. Here you are. Ice cold lemonade made in the shade by an old maid. Elizabeth. Oh, Elizabeth, here you are. Thank you. Frederick. Thank you, Will. Oh, delicious. Excellent beverage. Only my poor friends in Martinique could have ice to cool their fevered brows. There indeed would be a work of mercy. Oh, yes, it would indeed. Well, why not bring them ice, sir? What was that, Frederick? Well, the notion just occurred to me, sir. Why not export ice to the West Indies in ships? Why, Frederick, what a silly idea. Why? The ice would melt, of course. The ships would sink. Why, dear brother, have you had a touch of sun perhaps? No, no, no, no, I'm quite serious, Will. Mr. Newberry says it would be a work of mercy. You'd better stick to Major Sullivan's counting house, old boy. Now, look, we keep ice here all summer packed in hay, don't we? We have ice houses. Why not ice ships? I declare, Frederick, if my father could hear you, he'd dismiss you from the bank. The idea. Now, I've labored in your father's service, my dear, for seven long years, and I'm still a clerk. No, if we're going to marry, I've got to strike out on my own account. What is your opinion, sir? Could it be done? It has been done, my boy. No, no, I'm afraid it's a bad idea. It is too intense. It's too long sustained. There. You see? Well, just the same. I'm going to look into it further. If only it could be done. Ice for hot countries. Ice for the... Hot-n-tots? Ice for the king of the cannibal isles? All right. You'd have specialized for the Heathen Chinese and ice for the juleps of Charleston S.C. Elizabeth, Elizabeth, I'm sure when you two are married, my brother will recover from these strange spells he has. Well, I'm sure he'd better. Well, I'm not so sure. I don't give up easily. The idea, at first an idle notion, grew and grew in my thoughts as the months went by. And when winter came, a stern New England winter... Mr. Stouter, come over here. You better take the sparrow by the fire. Oh, certainly is cold. Well, can't get too cold for cutting ice. When she's cold, she don't snow. And when she don't snow... Yes, I know. When she don't snow, we don't have to scrape the pond. Snow thaw, freeze, scrape. Snow thaw, freeze and scrape. Over and over. I was better off in Sullivan's Bank. Yeah, that's how it goes. As the following the Omnic says, if you don't like our New England weather, just you wait a minute. Well, if she holds off till nightfall, I figure we'll get out three more tons today. You hired us a ship yet? No, no, I haven't. Will's trying again in Boston. Oh, look yonder. Coming down the road there. We got a visitor. Oh, I wonder who it could be. Rich folks, look at that rig. Oh, it's Miss Sullivan. It's Elizabeth. Oh, yes. Easy there. Well, Elizabeth, this is a surprise. I thought you said you... I've come to try once more, Frederick. I've driven all the way from Boston to New England. Oh, I'm glad you've come. I'm glad you've come. I'm glad you've come. I'm glad you've come. I'm glad you've come. I've driven all the way from Boston to try to persuade you to give up this insane idea. Now, look, I'm happy to see you, my dear. I'm very happy. But I've decided... Oh, Fred. Don't you know everyone in Boston is laughing at you? All my father's friends, all my friends, all the proper people. Well, I can't help that, Elizabeth. But you can help it. You can stop this nonsense. The man with the cargo of water, they call you. Oh, do they? Tell me this. Have you been able to chart her ship? Well, no, no, not yet. But my brother will. And you never will. Because every ship owner in Boston thinks you're a madman. And I'll not have a lunatic for a husband. A fool, a laughing... All right, now you listen to me, Elizabeth. I've convinced my brother Will, education and all, that my plan will work. Nat. Nat, come on over here. Yeah? Elizabeth, this is Nathaniel Wyatt, my foreman. Happy to meet you, ma'am. Nat knows ice, knows how to keep it in hot weather. Nobody knows more about ice than Nat Wyatt, and he believes in this venture, too. I don't care to meet any of your hired hands. Fred Tudor, either you give up this crazy thing, or we're through. Well, then, Elizabeth, I guess you know the answer. Goodbye. Get out. You was right. It is cold. Icy cold. She's pretty, though. She's beautiful. You going to stick it out, boy? Till Haiti's freezing. I'll stick it out. You'll stick it out. I'll stick it out. I'll stick it out. I'll stick it out. I'll stick it out. I'll stick it out. I'll stick it out. Till Haiti's freezes over. Good. What say we cut ice? My brother, trying his best, couldn't hire a ship for us. Not one single ship. I tried myself in Boston and in Charlestown. All the answers were the same. As I told your brother, Mr. Tudor, the ship Pearl is not available for charter in this adventure of yours. Shipping ice to the tropics, indeed. But your ship is lying idle right here in the Charles, and my ice is stored on the next moor. I'm fond of the Pearl, Tudor. She has made my fortune. I have no wish to see her founder with a hole full of water. I'm a busy man. Good day to you, sir. A cargo of ice? Did you say young man? Yes. I said ice. Capital I-C-E, ice. Sorry. I can't let you have the sloop union or any other sloop. Brig, schooner, catch, y'all, skip, or rowboat I own. Good day. Tell you what, Tudor, the Brig favorite is not available for charter, but I'll sell you the favorite. How much, Captain Ward? How much? Yes. She's old, but she's sturdy, steady and well-found. $10,000? $10,000? $10,000. Oh, oh, no, Captain Ward, my brother and I and Mr. Savage, we've been able to scrape together only $6,500. Goodbye, Captain. Wait, young man, wait a minute. Now, I'm a fool to do this, an old soft-hearted fool. She's yours for $6,500. I'll take her, Captain Ward, and I'll sail before the week is out. But it was many weeks before we could scrape together a crew and a sailing master daring enough to sail south with a cargo of ice. But at last we were off with 130 tons of Saugus ice bound for Martinique, and we thought for the beginning of great fortune. Surely the people of the hot countries who never had known the joys of ice would welcome us with open arms. And so we thought. I had even planned to donate some tons of ice to the hospital on Martinique to introduce my product. Shortly after we made port with our cargo just beginning to melt, I sought out the hospital superintendent, Mr. Jones. Mr. Tudor, we are indeed immensely grateful, but, well, how are we to use this ice? How are you to use it? Yes, how are we to transport it to the hospital five miles inland? Surely it would melt. How are we to store it? Why, I supposed you'd build an ice house. Well, even if we could find the materials and the labor, Mr. Tudor, we just don't know how. You see, no one on this island has ever seen a cake of ice. No, I'm afraid, Mr. Tudor, our people just don't know what ice is. I am the proprietor of the Hotel Atlantique, Mr. Achille LeBlanc. Hello. What can I do for you, Mr. Tudor? Mr. LeBlanc, you, I'm sure, know what ice is, what ice is for. Ice? Yes. Yes, yes, yes, it is for skating over, very charming, very amusing. I've seen the pictures in a book, but why do you wish to discuss this chilly business? Look, better we have a drink. No, the point, Mr. LeBlanc, is this. Out in the harbor, I have a cargo of 130 tons of, no, no, say 100 tons now, 100 tons of ice. 100 tons of ice? Yes. But why? Why, because I hope to sell it, of course. Oh, Mr. Tudor, no one in Martinique wishes to skate. Oh, no, no, no, man, it's not for skating, it's for cooling drinks. Surely you know how that's done. In Paris, yes, so I've heard, but in Martinique, no, it's too hot, much, much too hot. Well, look, look here, let me show you. I brought a sample along in this bag. Oh, well, I guess it's all melted. I had to wait on the dock for a carriage, and I guess it melted. How much cost this ice? Three cents a pound on the ship. So I pay three cents for it, I bring it back to my nice hotel, Atlantic, I arrive back and poof, it's gone, all melted. Why, oh, Mr. Tudor, better we have a drink now. Yes, Captain, I know it's melting faster. I told you never to leave the hatches off. I had to take the hatches off to fit the extra pumps. Ice is half gone now, we're just holding even. Got four pumps in there. Well, keep on pumping. Thank you, have to. We want to keep this tub afloat. Mr. Shortliffe. Yes, sir. Come on, Matt, let's go. Call me at six o'clock. Well, Mr. Tudor, I guess we're finally licked. No, not yet, Matt. I sent Will ashore to see the governor. Maybe we can beat some sense into the officials here. Should be back any minute. Here he comes, over the rail. What did you find out, Will? No use, Fred. These people are set in their ways. Never had ice, don't want ice. All right, then we'll have to teach you. Yeah, while the rest of the ice melts. What? Oh, Fred. Hmm? I did pick up a piece of news ashore. You did? Yeah, you won't like this either. Well, can't be any worse than what I've heard. There are vessels in with the Boston papers. Fred Elizabeth Sullivan was married two weeks ago to young Winthrop, the banker's son. All right, that settles it. I can hear her laughing at me now. We can't give up, Will. I'll show her if it takes the rest of my life. Are you with me? That I am. And you, Nat? The week freezes over, Mr. Tudor. The DuPont Cabalcade continues, starring Richard Whitmark as Frederick Tudor. Back in the middle 1800s, Mr. Tudor is addressing a testimonial dinner being given by his creditors in his honor. But not all was lost on that first voyage, gentlemen. No, no, not quite all. I taught the proprietor of the Tivoli Gardens in Martinique how to make ice cream, and we rescued the last few tons of our cargo. And I learned a great deal. What I learned was the truth of the late Thomas Jefferson statement. It takes time to persuade men to do even what is for their own good. You see, I'd been rash, impetuous, naive. I learned caution and persistence. Our greatest problem was to find an insulating substance for our ice crop. We tried rice and wheat chaff, more and more hay, tan bark, even coal dust. Then one day, Brother Will burst into our office. Fred? Yes, Will? Fred, I think I found it. Look here. Look. Another book. The Most Eligible Construction of Ice Houses by Thomas Moore. And what does Brother Moore allow? Well, the usual stuff. Old Nat, of course, knows more than he does. But look. Look here, this footnote. Now listen. It is said that in the forests of Scandinavia, pine sawdust is used for the storage of ice and that ice so insulated has been transported safely to the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. Well? Fred, up in Maine, I've seen mountains of pine sawdust. They only use it to sprinkle on taproom floors. Get a bag pack, Brother. We're going to buy us some sawdust. A mountain of it. Well, gentlemen, the sawdust worked. We built the ice trade. We strove to bring its healthful benefits to our fellow man. And as a result of our efforts, we prospered and we blossomed forth like the Green Bay Tree. And then, then you gentlemen know what happened. I forgot the lessons I'd learned. I became too bold. I deserted ice, my true love, and I invested heavily in coffee. But my speculation failed. I was even threatened with jail for my debts. But you gentlemen came to the rescue. I remember the day. I've been waiting here since noon, Fred. What did they say? They'll advance the money. We'll stay out of jail for a while. They'll let you have the full amount? All of it, $200,000. I have three years to pay. Three? Oh, but the time's too short. Yes, well, I know. Somehow, somehow we've got to find more ships, more ports. Well, we can try. I suppose we can try. We always do. Mr. Tudor. Yes. Mr. Bradford to see you, sir. Well, now who could that be? He seems to be an Englishman, Mr. Will, and quite a swell. Show him in, Bob. Right this way, Mr. Bradford. Well, good afternoon, gentlemen. Good afternoon. My name is George Bradford. You, sir, Frederick Tudor? That I am, and this is my brother, William. Delighted, gentlemen. Mr. Tudor, your fame has penetrated to the farthest corners of the earth. Oh? All of us who live under the tropic sun are in your everlasting debt. Well, I'm glad to know that someone is in debt to me. I thought it the other way around, sir. You are in business difficulty, Mr. Tudor? Well, to put it mildly, yes, I am. I believe your difficulty is over, Mr. Tudor. What? I have been sent to you as a representative of the Anglo-Indian Trading Company. I've journeyed from Calcutta, sir, to ask you to send us your ice. Your from India? Yes, from India. Mr. Tudor, I am prepared to offer you all the worldwide facilities of our firm in return for all the ice you can cut and send us in Calcutta, Bombay, and Madras. Well, you can provide us with return cargoes? Pepper, sir, sugar and spice, ginger and Indian cottons, the best garish eating, palik and handkerchiefs, madras chintz, emmites and seersuckers. Just send us the ice. Can we make a deal, Mr. Tudor? That we can, sir. That we can. We could and we did. Before long, Will and I were deep in the India trade, day and night, night and day. We had very little sleep and neither had Bob, our bright young clerk. Did you call me, sir? Yes, yes, Bob. And you know, you've got to learn to stay awake even after midnight. I do my best, sir. Yes, I'm sure you do. I want you to take down another letter, Bob. To Captain Littlefield on board the brig Tuscany at Charlestown. My dear Captain Littlefield, you will sail as planned with the tide on Friday next, the first of my new fleet. As soon as you have arrived in latitude 12 degrees north, you will have carried ice as far south as it has ever been carried before. And your ship becomes a Discovery ship. A happy voyage. Signed, Frederick Tudor, merchant of ice. Oh, spell the word ice with a capital I, will you, Bob? Yes, sir. And when you're done, get some sleep, boy. Well, brother, it appears we've saved our necks once more. Yes, thanks to ice. Well, what do you think of our business? And all from an idea. Yesterday, if you can believe it, I actually stopped worrying for three minutes straight. Good boy. You know, it's a funny thing, this business of worrying. You remember last winter when we were cutting ice on Baldwin Pond up near Concord? I could hardly forget those wild Irishmen we had on the job. What a crew. There was a man up there named Thoreau, lived in a log cabin all by himself. I got to know him pretty well and we talked a lot. A wise man, Will. I was worried sick then. It was just before the Tuscany made port at Calcutta. I see. What shall I do, I asked this man Thoreau. Do what you love, Tudor. Do what you love, he said. Well, I suddenly realized that that was what I had been doing all along. Oh? A long time ago, brother, Elizabeth was your love. I haven't forgotten her, Will. She's changed, that's all. Changed to ice. And so, gentlemen, the story has a happy ending. And it has a moral, too, or rather two morals. The first, you know, you've heard me say again and again. He who gives back at the first repulse and without striking the second blow, despairs of success, has never been, is not, and never will be a hero in war, in love, or in business. Yes, but there's much more to it than that. There's more to ice, pleasant coolness we all enjoy. How many of you have ever heard of what is called the strange nature of water? Yes, brother William, of course, and the rest of the Harvard contingent. Well, I never was fortunate enough to attend Harvard College, but I can recognize God's grace when I see it. And I see it in frozen water. Now, maybe I'm blind to all else after so many years, but nevertheless, none of us could live. No life would be possible had not providence in wisdom or love or otherwise made water to behave as it does behave under low temperatures. Gentlemen, alone, of all the myriad forms of matter, water does not continue to contract as it nears the freezing point, but instead it suddenly expands. For if ice contracted, as all other substances do, all other substances under chilling, then ice would become heavier than the same volume of water, and therefore it would sink to the bottom of every cove, inlet, lake, and pond from coast to coast. And it would lie there insulated from the sun and unmelded, adding a layer each year until all the seas and all the lakes and all the ponds would be filled with ice, enough ice to upset the balance of nature and chill the marrow of mankind to the point of extinction. But that doesn't happen. Why else should water alone be different? By God's mercy, I say. And now let us give thanks for all of God's mercies and for all the opportunities we have before us in this good, this free, and this blessed land. Our thanks to Richard Widmark and the Cabalcade players for tonight's story, The Man with a Cargo of Water. Richard Widmark will return in a moment. And now our star, Richard Widmark. Thank you. Thank you very much. As a former Cabalcade player, I always look forward to returning to do one of these broadcasts. A number of us who now work in Hollywood began our careers on this program, and naturally our interest in all things Cabalcade continues as keenly as ever. My own leads me to recommend next week's show. It's an exciting story called Golden Harvest, and Cabalcade's star will be one of Hollywood's finest young actors, Lon McAllister. Now how about joining me and listening then, huh? Thank you and good night. Tonight's original duPont drama, The Man with a Cargo of Water, was written by George H. Faulkner and was based on material in Lost Men of American History by Stuart Holbrooke, published by Macmillan. Richard Widmark appeared through arrangement with 20th Century Fox Pictures and can currently be seen in the Daryl F. Zennick production, No Way Out. Music for the DuPont Cabalcade is composed by Arden Cornwell and conducted by Donald Borez. The program is directed by John Zoller. Don't forget next week, Lon McAllister on the DuPont Cabalcade of America, which comes to you from the Velasco Theater in New York and is sponsored by the DuPont Company of Wilmington, Delaware, makers of better things for better living through chemistry.
