MEDIEVAL MASSACHUSETTS

In upholding the verdict in the "Salem birth control case," the Massachusetts Supreme Court yesterday threw an effective obstacle in the path of social progress. Basing its brief on a fact of dubious relevancy--"that the moral and social wrongs arising from the prevention of conception appeared . . . threatening in 1879"--the Court showed a deliberate unwillingness to interpret the law in the light of modern needs. The decision was a great deal more concerned with the "sexual immorality" it hoped to prevent, than with the appalling human misery it was perpetuating. Until knowledge long in possession of the rich is made accessible to the underprivileged, social standards in Massachusetts will remain at their present disgraceful level.