QUESTIONING THE MOTIVES OF CRUSADER

Dear Editor:

I read with interest a recent letter by Alan Bean that was published
in the Tulia Herald. I have no desire to debate with Mr. Bean the
Tulia drug bust controversy, but I feel compelled to ask him to answer
some specific questions about his role in this matter.

My first question is one that I asked Mr. Bean last year in a
letter to the editor of the Amarillo Globe News: What is the nature of
your affiliation with the Drug Policy Forum of Texas and the Kunstler
Fund for Racial Justice? Both of these organizations advocate the
legalization of illegal drugs. Neither Mr. Bean nor representatives
of these organizations answered this question.

My second question concerns any financial support to Mr. Bean from the
two above mentioned organizations. Since Mr. Bean moved to Tulia
several years ago, he has not had a full-time job and has only been
employed part-time for short periods, while seeming to live quite well
on his wife's salary as a teacher. There may be some simple
explanation for his apparent financial independence. If so, people of
Tulia who read his largely unchallenged, highly opinionated articles
need assurance that he has not received money from organizations that
have an agenda not widely supported by the public.

All Mr. Bean has to do to refute this conflict of interest allegation
is to respond in detail to the questions I have posed. Is he being
paid for his crusade on behalf of the black people who were convicted
on drug charges, and if so how much and by which organizations.

Until he supplies us with this inf0rmation, I believe that many of the
hard-working people of Tulia will doubt his objectivity and motives.

GORDON W. SCOTT, M.D.
Tulia