Time of

Testing In the barbershop of Kansas City's Muehlebach Hotel, a 13-year-old Negro boy, Eugene Young, hopped into a chair, opened his fist to display two $1 bills, and ordered a haircut. Without hesitating, Barber Lloyd Soper covered the lad with a white apron, took out his clippers and went to work.

Only the day before, Eugene had been refused service in the same shop. But in the intervening 24 hours, the most far-reaching civil rights bill in U.S. history had become the law of the land -- and, as the Negro boy climbed into the chair, the time of testing had begun.

Fitful Doodling. During its 118 1/4-day legislative voyage from the House to the Senate and then back to the House again, the bill had been desperately fought all the way. Among its final foes was wily old Virginia Democrat Howard Smith, chairman of the House Rules Committee. At a 6 1/2-hour session last week, Smith used every parliamentary trick to delay committee approval of the Senate-amended measure.

The hearing's first witness was Brooklyn Democrat Emanuel Celler, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, which wrote the original version of the bill. Celler read the bill section by section while Smith doodled fitfully. When Celler began enumerating the Attorney General's powers, Smith scribbled cryptically on his note pad: "Atty. Gen. --Czar." When Celler had finished, Mississippi's William Colmer blew up. "If it's not politics," he cried, "then what is behind all this rape of the constitutional and legislative processes? God pity this young republic!"

But the segregationists' battle was lost, and they knew it. The committee voted 10 to 5--with California Republican H. Allen Smith joining four Democrats in opposition--to send the bill to the House floor with a recommendation for approval. And next day, by a lopsided 289 to 126 (with 153 Democrats and 136 Republicans voting aye, 91 Democrats and 35 Republicans voting nay), a cheering House of Representatives gave final and historic approval.

A Reassuring Note. Four and a half hours later, the civil rights bill lay on President Johnson's desk. Staring deep into the eyes of television cameras, Johnson spoke slowly and somberly to the nation. Millions of Americans have been denied equal opportunity because of their color, said the President, "but it cannot continue. Our Constitution, the foundation of our Republic, forbids it; the principles of our freedom forbid it, and the law I will sign tonight forbids it."

"The purpose of this law," he said, "is simple. It does not restrict the freedom of any American, so long as he respects the rights of others. It does not give special treatment to any citizen. It does say the only limit to a man's hope for happiness, and for the future of his children, shall be his own ability. It does say that those who are equal before God shall now also be equal in the polling booths, in the classroom, in the factories, and in hotels, restaurants, movie theaters, and other places that provide service to the public." To help communities over hurdles in implementing the new law, Johnson said, he was naming LeRoy Collins, former Florida Governor and now president of the National Association of Broadcasters, to head the Community Relations Service established by the bill.

Not all of the upcoming tests of the civil rights bill would be as trouble-free as young Eugene Young's haircut. But a reassuring note was struck by Georgia's Representative Charles Weltner, who turned to his Southern colleagues on the House floor and said: "I would urge that we now move on to the unfinished task of building a new South. We must not remain forever bound to another lost cause."

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