Starring Richard Widmark in the return of the lodger.
Presented by the DuPont Company, makers of better things for better living through chemistry.
Good evening and welcome to Cavalcade.
This is Bill Hamilton.
Now the return of the lodger.
A story of Jacob Reese starring Richard Widmark.
On a rainy night in the year 1896.
You're sure it's this police station Reese?
There are scores of police stations in New York.
It's this one.
I couldn't forget it.
And you still insist I see it at this ungodly hour of 2 a.m.
It's insane.
Why, you're shivering with cold.
No not with cold.
I'm shivering with memory.
I was here before 20 years ago.
Wet like this, cold like this, dismal like this.
It's too dismal for me.
Let's go in Reese.
Officer Malavi.
Huh?
Yes Sergeant.
Lay down them cards.
Two more tramps seating lodging.
All right through that door bums.
Find a plank nobody's sleeping on and flop.
Hey just a minute.
There's something funny going on.
You, you're not a bum.
That's right Sergeant.
My name is Jacob Reese.
I'm a newspaper man.
Oh I've heard about you.
You make trouble.
Well not in my station house.
Out you go.
Sergeant.
Commandery former out.
Take your hands off him.
And who do you think you are my boy?
I'm afraid sir that I'm not your boy.
We might go so far as to say that you are my boy.
I'm the new police commissioner of the city of New York.
Holy mother.
Now take your hands off Mr. Reese.
Yes sir.
Sergeant.
Yes sir.
This station house is a pigsty.
Clean it up.
I will sir.
Right away sir.
All right Reese.
Come on let's see those homeless lodgers of yours.
Here they are.
Listen.
The sound of sleepers.
The sound of homeless men.
The unwanted of New York.
This is the refuse of the city.
The off scourge.
And yet they are mother's sons.
And this is their lodging for the night.
Their bed is hard.
And I'll tell you that there's no comfort upon them.
No blanket, no sheet.
They sleep upon the wood of coffins.
Hungry and cheerless they lay down to sleep.
And cheerless and hungry will they rise.
Reese.
How do you know these things in the darkness?
I know these things because twenty years ago upon another winter's night when the February
rain drove down the river I was a stranger and friendless in the city.
Somehow I found myself sitting on a pier.
Sitting in the black rain.
Staring at the black water.
How long I stared I don't know.
Then out of the rain there came a voice.
Who's that in the pier?
Speak up I'm the watchman.
Who's there?
I carry a club.
I'm doing nothing watchman.
Then show your face to the lantern.
Who are you?
I'm just sitting here.
Sitting in the rain?
Yes watchman.
Where's your home?
I have none.
Well you can't sit here in the rain.
What are you up to?
I'm staring at the water.
The water's cold and it runs deep.
I've seen the bodies the harbor brings up.
Have you watchman?
I have.
But I will not argue with you.
You're grown you do what you must do.
Yes watchman.
But winter rain is more cruel than winter snow.
Two o'clock and the weather's foul.
Two o'clock and falling rain.
Two o'clock and no hope left but a lonely two o'clock.
Three years ago I was hungry.
I was lonely.
I was given over to my own weariness.
My clothes were wet shrouds and the black water of the harbor was lodging for the night.
For that night and for all nights.
Deep and forever and final.
And then sir there on that pier I found a living creature even more miserable than I.
What's that?
Well hello pup.
What are you doing out in the cold rain?
You cold pup?
Yeah I'm cold too.
Oh don't cry fella don't cry.
Come on boy.
Big dog like you crying.
Put him under your coat.
Is that you watchman?
Did you put him under your coat?
He'll receive warmth from you and you'll receive warmth from him.
Put him under your coat.
Why should you care whether we're warm or not?
Because of the pain of all living things.
What's your name?
Jacob Reese.
Where were you born Jacob Reese?
Denmark.
And why did you come to America Jacob Reese?
Because they said America was a promise.
Well isn't it?
I haven't seen it.
They're dead don't see the promise.
Only the living.
Put the dog under your coat and go away from the dark water.
There's a place I know where you can stretch out on a canvas hammock for seven cents.
You got seven cents?
No.
Would you take seven cents from an old man?
I've lived this week on scraps and charity no more.
Then go to the police lodging house.
It costs nothing.
There's a station house on Church Street.
And so commissioner 20 years ago on a night like this night and to this same place where
the sleepers lay on wooden planks I came with a living creature in my arms.
I came out of the rain in the night to this same station house and to this same room and
it seems to me that the voice of the police sergeant here tonight is the same voice I
heard 20 years ago.
What do you want?
Lodging through that door.
Thank you sergeant.
Just a minute.
Did you hear something?
No sir.
Well I heard something.
What's that bulging?
What's inside your coat?
Open your coat.
I should lay my fists on you for that.
Take it outside and be quick about it.
But it's cold outside.
The city keeps police lodging for human bums.
Take the dog bum outside.
Hey.
You.
Me?
You.
Got something to eat?
You're a liar.
I've got nothing.
Got tobacco?
No, no tobacco.
A world full of liars.
Liars and fleas.
Hey.
What are you pulling away from?
Your fleas.
What's wrong?
What is wrong with the fleas?
Can't you give some of your hospitality to God's homeless creatures?
The police took me in, I took the fleas in.
That right Dutch?
Dutch.
Shut up.
Let me sleep.
Dutch I don't like a cranky man.
There's sun and flowers and free lunch in the saloon so why be peepish Dutch?
It's a filthy place where we are.
Granted.
And a filthy station house.
No argument Dutch.
And a filthy city.
This part of it?
And a rotten filthy hateful country.
You shouldn't say a thing like that Dutch.
You shouldn't say a thing like that.
After all Dutch America.
Why did you hit the tramp?
It pleased me so.
It was wrong of you to hit him.
Nobody asked you.
And it was wrong of you to say what you said.
Nobody tells Dutch he is wrong.
Nobody.
I'm telling you.
You talk too much.
You talk too much the tramp talks too much.
I don't like such people.
What's your name?
Who are you to ask?
Better answer him young fellow.
Why?
Because it is my healthy.
In this rotten place I am in charge.
Me.
You will be kind enough to tell me your name.
What for?
Because I have something to give you.
Oh well my name is Jacob Reese.
Then here's for you.
Jacob Reese.
All right all right stop it.
That's enough.
All right Dutch who started it this time?
Not me officer.
This man Reese started it.
Him and his friend the tramp.
No that's all I want to know.
Look out Reese.
That's one last your piece.
There'll be no fighting in this large house.
I emphasize the point.
I'll take the skin of the back of the next one of you to start anything.
I go back to sleep.
You are listening to Richard Widmark as Jacob Reese in the return of the lodger.
Tonight's radio play on the cavalcade of America presented by the DuPont Company.
Makers of better things for better living through chemistry.
Twenty years ago commissioner in this same room.
My jaw swollen.
My back raw from the whip.
Surrounded by tramps and thugs and black guards and young boys whom I could hear whimpering
in the darkness.
It was a monstrous place then as it's a monstrous place still.
For the old it was a school of crime and for the young boys a nursery of vice.
Reese.
Yes.
Thanks.
Oh sorry.
Why did he whip us and not Dutch?
Because Dutch is in with them.
Them?
The vice ring that runs these lodging houses.
How do you know that?
I've been around Reese.
There are young boys in this room.
Country boys who came to the city for a job.
Bro, they came here.
That men like Dutch recruit them for the mobsters.
Reese why did you try to defend me?
I'm nothing but a tramp.
I don't know why.
Perhaps.
Yes Reese.
Perhaps because you are a tramp and should be bitter.
And yet you spoke up for your country.
I'll tell you Reese.
Me I'm no good, bone lazy.
But there ain't anything a man can't do in this country if he has the heart and the will.
Tonight I, I wanted to kill myself.
Why?
The usual.
No job, lonely.
Nothing left in the world except this gold locket.
Your sweetheart?
Yes.
Where is she?
Denmark where I come from.
Homesick.
For her.
I could be happy here.
You could be.
Anyone could be.
Look Reese, a rotten place.
There are things wrong here, things like this.
The slum tenements, slum people, the vice ring.
But there isn't one single wrong thing that can't be put right.
That's why America's good, wrong gets put right.
Yes.
I uh, I'd like to know your name.
One name's as good as another.
Jones will do for the night.
Thank you Jones.
What for?
For talking to me.
Talk is nothing.
You know Reese, there are doers and talkers.
That's why I'm a tramp.
I've talked all my life.
Will you do?
I don't know, I'll try.
Will you try hard?
I don't know.
I hope so.
Listen Reese, go and look at this stone cutter.
He hammers at the rock a hundred times.
Yes.
Nothing happens, not even a crack.
But the next time, the hundred and first time, the rock splits in two.
Yes, I know what you mean, Jones.
Reese, it isn't the hundred and first blow that splits the rock.
It's every blow that went before, all of them together.
Now, hold on to your locket and go to sleep.
There's a time in every man's life, an hour, a moment, an instant, when his soul is as
soft as wax.
And in that instant, a man may receive the stamp that fashions his life.
That moment, Mr. Commissioner, was my instant.
I lay there an outcast, but in that moment I knew that my life was shaped.
Not to be my brother's keeper, to be my brother's brother.
To erase the slum that diminishes his humanity.
To make a space amid the tenements for a tree to grow for him.
For a park.
For green ground where his children might play.
For clean houses, new houses.
For an end to filth and the conditions which generate filth.
I knew then.
A tramp told me.
I placed my hand upon a little locket of gold and I fell asleep.
Reese?
Reese, wake up.
Reese.
Who are you?
A tramp.
Jones.
What's wrong?
Your locket.
What?
It's gone.
Dutch, I saw him.
Take it from your neck.
Dutch.
Dutch, wake up.
Dutch, you're only pretending to be asleep.
Quiet, sir.
Dutch, I want my locket back.
Shut up, you bum, and let another bum sleep.
I want my locket.
No, no, no.
You're a fool.
No.
I want my locket.
Give it to me.
No, no.
Give me my locket back, Dutch.
Please, give it to me.
Give it to me.
All right.
Stop it.
So you're making trouble again.
Dutch stole my gold locket.
Gold?
Yes.
Yours?
Yes.
And you got it for me.
My sweetheart and denmark.
Well, don't you believe me?
No.
There ain't any locket.
There is you stole it.
You yourself.
I did not.
I demand that you search Dutch.
You demand, huh?
What do you know about this, Dutch?
That's a lie from beginning to end.
He is the thief.
I can vouch for the truth of what Reese said.
A tramp vouches for a thief.
Stop the laughing.
Stop it.
One more sound and I'll throw every last one of you in the cooler.
Come on, Reese.
What are you gonna do?
Come on, Reese.
You will see what I'm gonna do.
Before you pulling me.
You came here with a dog.
Now I'm throwing you back to the dogs.
Now I don't ever want you to show your face in this station house again.
And I make sure you don't forget here's a swift kick to remind you.
That poor little black and tan model.
Commissioner he'd waited for me in the rain.
I was his only friend.
And when he saw his friend attacked, he defended.
Bite me, will you?
Here's for you.
He killed the little dog.
I've not forgotten it.
And the memory of it brought me back tonight.
The sound of the sleepers.
Listen to that sound, Commissioner.
Twenty years ago and now.
The same sound.
I have the memory of that sound to thank.
The memory of a little dog and a tramp and an evil man.
Those memories, Commissioner, have been with me always.
The tramp was right.
There's no wrong in America that cannot be made right if men have heart for what must
be done.
Commissioner, I made you come on this night at this hour because there's danger in this
room.
Typhus and viciousness and crime.
Please, I'm grateful to you.
Sergeant, I'll ask you now for a lantern.
Yes, Commissioner.
Yes, Sergeant, right away, sir.
Sergeant, aren't these men given a bath before they lodge here?
No, sir.
Don't you give them a cup of tea or a slice of bread or even a drink of water?
No, sir.
And aren't blankets provided to cover them?
No, sir.
The lantern, Sergeant.
Raise it high, Milavi.
Say what you see, Mr. Commissioner.
Sergeant, in the name of God, what are those children doing here?
Sleeping on the boards with the others, sir.
Why aren't the boys the children separated from the tramps and the thieves?
Those are not my orders, sir.
Those are your orders, Sergeant.
Now.
Yes, sir.
Reese?
Yes?
Reese, I'm grateful to you.
What for, Commissioner?
For bringing a rotten situation to my attention.
Yes, it is a rotten situation.
And I know that you'll make it into a decent situation.
That's a good deal of faith to put in a new police commissioner.
Not when the name of the police commissioner is Theodore Roosevelt.
You see, I have faith in you, sir.
The land is large, Mr. Roosevelt.
And perhaps this incident is small.
And yet small things are also symbols.
The small symbols and the large symbols.
The wrongs that are put right, the abuses that are corrected, the slums that will go down,
the houses that will go up, the cities that will be cleansed, the never-ending struggle
by our generation and each generation that follows, for now and for the future, to build
a free land, a good land.
Our thanks to Richard Widmark and our cavalcade players for tonight's drama about Jacob Reese,
of whom Theodore Roosevelt said.
If I was asked to name a fellow man who came nearest to being the ideal American citizen,
I would name Jacob Reese.
Tonight's cavalcade play, The Return of the Lodger, starring Richard Widmark, was written
by Morton Wischengrad.
Theodore Roosevelt was played by Ian Martin.
Arthur Cole was the tramp, and Edgar Staley the watchman.
The music for the DuPont cavalcade is composed by Arden Cornwell, conducted by Donald Borey.
This is Ted Pearson speaking.
Next week, the cavalcade will present the distinguished American actor, Walter Hamdon,
together with the radio and television child star, Ivan Curry.
Our play, Footlights on the Frontier, is a heartwarming story about a little boy who
grew up to become one of the greatest stars of the American theater, Joseph Jefferson.
Be sure to join us.
Cavalcade of America is directed by John Zoller, comes to you each week from the stage of the
Longacre Theater on Broadway in New York, and is presented by the DuPont Company of
Wilmington, Delaware.
Richard Widmark appeared by arrangement with 20th Century Fox, producers of House of Strangers.
This is NBC, the national broadcasting company.