Again, Vare

William S. Vare, Republican boss of Philadelphia, wants to crown his career by taking his seat in the U. S. Senate.

President Coolidge wants to crown his career by having the Senate ratify the Kellogg-Briand Treaty for renouncing-war-as-an-instrument-of-national-policy.

Senator James A. Reed of Missouri wants to crown his career by keeping Mr. Vare permanently out of the Senate and by killing the Kellogg-Briand Treaty in the Senate.

Last week, these desires were strangely inter-vexed. Mr. Vare was observing his 61st birthday in Atlantic City, N. J., when a message arrived summoning him to appear again before Senator Reed's investigating committee in Washington, D. C. The Reed strategy was this: get the Senate to take up the Vare case again, and since discussion of a Senator's seat is a subject of highest privilege, this postpones and perhaps prevents the ratification of the Kellogg-Briand Treaty.

Mr. Vare's counsel, Francis Shunk Brown, announced flatly that Mr. Vare would not and could not appear before the Reed committee on Jan. 4. Three physicians of Mr. Vare backed this statement, saying that a trip to Washington would "work great hardship upon a nervous system that has been badly damaged, and possibly might even jeopardize his [Vare's] life."

Mr. Vare was a sick man last May. But he got out of bed, went to the Kansas City convention, played a conspicuous hotel-room part prior to the nomination of Mr. Hoover. Soon after, he had a paralytic stroke.

The Senate case against Mr. Vare goes' back to his large campaign expenses in the Pennsylvania primary of 1926 and his election that autumn. Mr. Vare remained last week a Senator-elect, a Senator-suspect, a sick man.