October 19, 1992

The Senator from New York was angry. Outraged. Shocked. "You big baloney artists," he yelled across the Senate floor at his colleagues. "I have to tell you the biggest bunch of hypocrites is right here, right here. You do not give a damn about the people, not a damn." It could only have been the junior Senator, the scrappy one from Long Island. Alfonse M. D'Amato's 15-hour filibuster earlier this month was passionate, indignant and, at times, maudlin -- somewhere between Jimmy Stewart taking on the capital and the final moments of the "Jerry Lewis Telethon." It was vintage D'Amato.

Take a short stroll down Wall Street and the differences are as tangible as the cold, hard facade of the New York Stock Exchange: Less crowded. Less frantic. And, somehow, much more under control. Since that Monday five years ago today, when the Dow Jones industrial average plunged 508 points, or 22.6 percent, the face of Wall Street has been indelibly changed. Much of the jolting upheaval brought on by the crash has been exceedingly painful: 50,000 securities industry workers lost their jobs, brokerage firms collapsed and the era of easy confidence in the market died.

After months of dismissing the Presidential campaign with a mix of cynicism and apathy, Americans have become invigorated by the race, registering to vote in record numbers and clinging to every word of the debates and election coverage. Throughout the country, election officials say they are swamped by voter registration forms -- most enrolling as Democrats -- as well as by requests for absentee ballots and by their quick return.

GAME 2 Toronto . . . 5 Atlanta . . . 4 SportsMonday, Page C1.

As if things were not bad enough for the states, counties and cities of the New York City region, the deep recession of the early 1990's is underscoring an unhappy lesson of government: When times are tough, partisan bickering only makes things worse. "It takes difficult times to bring out the worst political cheap shots," said Robert W. Burchell, a fiscal-policy analyst at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J. Earlier this month, his state laid off 1,500 government workers in the aftermath of a heated partisan dispute and legal battle over lowering the state sales tax.