Sentence:  But plain old bean soup , served daily since the turn of the century ( at the insistence of the late Sen. Fred Dubois of Idaho ) , made clear to the citizenry that the Senate 's stomach <WSD>was</WSD> in the right place . 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  have the quality of being; (copula, used with an adjective or a predicate noun)