After twenty years of sinister maneuvering, the liquor industry is preparing to relaunch the brazen tactics it employed in the destruction of Prohibition.

First indication of this sordid program appeared when the high-minded Saturday Evening Post recently decided to end its own noble experiment by opening its virginal pages to liquor ads. As if this were not enough, the full scope of the industry's schemes was exposed at the recent meeting of the Distilled Spirits Institute. Here, an unidentified source disclosed that the industry may soon end the taboo on women appearing in its advertising.

To be sure, temporary concessions would be made to appease the alarmed public. We are assured, for example, that women in bathing suits, or "abbreviated attire," will not appear. But can we be sure, really sure?

Nor is this all. With the Christmas Season approaching, there are already indications that the industry, placing no restraint on its corruption, is about to exploit the gentle image of Santa Claus in peddling its corrosive poisons.

Faced with this situation, it is a comfort to live in Massachusetts. For the Commonwealth, the home of the Blue Laws and Cotton Mather, of no baseball on Sunday mornings and no sherry under twenty-one, is already resisting. In a sharp letter to the liquor barons, the Massachusetts Beverage Control deplored the use of the "pictures and/or name of St. Nicholas--also called Santa Claus" in its advertising. Here, at least, the spirit that warmed Salem is not yet extinguished.