Mr. President, will the Senator yield?" is the most frequently heard question on the Senate floor. Despite its familiarity, West Virginia's droning Chapman Revercomb faltered in mid-speech when he heard it one day last week. The polite parliamentary request came from a citizen in a rear gallery.
Connecticut's Senator Raymond Baldwin, who happened to be presiding, recognized the gallery immediately—with an order to clear it. But before Citizen Brooks Washburn, a well-heeled, 32-year-old Portland, Ore. war veteran, went down under the hammer locks of Capitol police, he addressed the chair again. "Mr. President," he yelled with...
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