‘Do you not find such a concept abhorrent?’
‘Mr Goldberg, I have to teach in this town. I’m not a policeman, I’m a schoolmaster. It’s all right for you city people to come to the bush with all your fancy demands, but you don’t know anything about the blacks. Take it from me, they’re just not the same as us.’
‘Where have I heard that before, Mr Burrows?’ Moishe muses.
The schoolmaster sighs. ‘You really don’t have any idea, do you?’
‘What is that supposed to mean, Mr Burrows?’ Burrows sighs heavily and, leaning forward, he opens the top drawer to his desk. After a few moments he produces what appears to be a letter written on cheap lined yellow stationery.
‘This is a letter from a man born in this town, a parent of two of the children at this school. He is well liked and respected, a local businessman and on the town council, so you can see he carries a fair amount of clout around these parts.’
Moishe takes the letter and begins to read. He will later have Richard Runche present the letter in court as part of their case.
Mr C. Fern Member, Legislative Assembly Sydney, New South Wales Dear Mr Fern,
I object to the blacks assoiating with the children of the whites, especially my own Whom I am going to with draw Should the blacks be allowed to continue their attendance at the Above School.
My reassons are, Principle first, Second I contend morraly mentaly and Phisickelly the Blacks are not fit to assoiate in the Play ground especially with children of from 6 to 8 years of adge, as little children continualy in the company of Blacks acquire to the ways and moodes of the Aborignies. I think it is very hard that us out back Should be put on a level with the Blacks by the Government. The smell in the School House from the Blacks in this hot climate is objectionable. Yours truly,
A. Stevenson.
Moishe looks up from his reading. ‘May I make a copy of this letter, please?’
The schoolmaster shrugs. ‘Don’t see why not. It was sent to the local member who sent it on — it wasn’t marked confidential.’
Moishe holds up the letter. ‘And so on the evidence of this one letter you removed the Aboriginal children from your school?’ he says.
‘No, there was also a medical problem.’
‘A medical problem? What, with the Aboriginal children?’
Burrows grows suddenly frustrated and rises from behind his desk. ‘Mr Goldberg, I am not at liberty to discuss the matter. You will need to write to the Department of Education in Sydney.’
So Moishe does just this and some weeks later he receives a copy of a report written by the principal medical officer of the School Medical Service.
To the Under Secretary
Department of Education 24 June 1923
I visited the Cootamundra Primary School on the 22nd Inst., and inquired into the alleged outbreak of venereal disease among the scholars. It was alleged that one of the school children, named Arthur Simmonds, age 6, had contracted gonorrhoea. That he had been infected through using the school water closet, which had previously been infected by one of the Aboriginal children attending the school. (There are three Aboriginal children attending the school at present.) Some weight was given to the allegations, owing to the known fact that three Aboriginal boys had contracted gonorrhoea in March last. These boys, however, have not attended the Cootamundra Primary School for, at least, twelve months.
I had a meeting with the (white) parents (about 30), at which the matter was freely discussed. The parents were then invited to have their children examined, and 45 children were presented by their parents for that purpose. Arthur S-, age 6, and his brother Tom, age 8, were found to be suffering from well-marked gonorrhoea. This diagnosis I confirmed by bacteriological examination. The other 43 children examined were found free from gonorrhoea, although a fair proportion was found suffering from other conditions of the privates needing attention. These conditions were pointed out and explained to the parents.
Mr Simmonds, father of the two boys suffering from the disease, stated ‘the younger boy, Arthur, contracted it first, but he hadn’t been at school for nine or ten weeks previous to developing the gonorrhoea’. As the incubation period of gonorrhoea is about five to ten days, and the boy had not been to school for nine or ten weeks previous to developing the disease, the school could not have been the causal agent. Those parents I met appeared now to be quite satisfied that the school could not be looked upon as a source of infection. Many stated ‘they would send their children back to school’.
The feeling against allowing Aboriginal children to attend the school appeared to be very acute. I was asked if this could not be stopped, or, short of that, could not these children be made to occupy a separate department of the school. I promised to place the matter before you on my return to Sydney.
Signed
Principal Medical Officer — School Medical Service.
Following up on the report, Moishe discovers that the Simmonds children in question were white and could not have caught gonorrhoea at the school. They could only have contracted the venereal disease either from a member of the family or from someone else involving them in an act of sexual congress. In fact, no one had caught the disease at school. The Simmonds children were excluded along with all Aboriginal children but, unlike the Aboriginal children (who did not have gonorrhoea and who were never readmitted), the Simmonds children returned to the school when they recovered from the disease.
However, despite his persistence, all Moishe’s efforts with the Department of Education to have Polly and Sarah, now that she had turned six, admitted to the school fail. The girls are condemned to receiving no education of any value within the Cootamundra Domestic Training Home for Aboriginal Girls.
Life in the Cootamundra Girls’ Home is a harsh existence. The staff who supervise the children are poorly paid and, for the most part, ignorant, uncaring and cruel. There is nothing more desperate than the lower orders of whites given the opportunity to persecute those they believe to be inferior to themselves. Mary is encouraged by Richard Runche and Moishe Goldberg, on her monthly visits to the home, to obtain details of the conditions within the institution from Polly, so that Runche may use them in the forthcoming court case.
Polly is an intelligent and observant child whose spirit has not yet been broken. But she and Sarah suffer greatly at the hands of the staff, who deeply resent the fact that Mary is allowed to visit her children. The two girls are constantly threatened by the matron to ‘keep your gobs shut’ and warned that if they tell their mother anything bad about the place they’ll be severely punished for telling lies. As a reminder the staff wash out the girls’ mouths with soap before every visit by their mother.