James Patrick Pryor

ON October 1, at Great Lakes Naval Station, James Patrick Pryor,' 19,the editor of The Fordham Monthly, during 1917-18, died of influenza. He had enlisted in June, at the close of the scholastic year, and was called to active duty on September 19, just as the epidemic was beginning to spread its heavy wings of terror and death over the land.

Jim, or "Pat," as he was known at Fordham, was born in New York City and received his grammar-school education under the tutelage of the Christian Brothers at St. Mary's School, Yonkers. At the age of fourteen he entered Fordham Prep., and, after completing his course, entered the College as a member of the Class of 1919, in which he remained until his enlistment in the Navy in June, I918.

Such is the simple history of Jim Pryor. To the casual reader there is apparently nothing to differentiate him from a hundred other Catholic college men, past or present; nothing to suggest that his character was of a stuff that made him stand out with cameo-like clearness against a background of mediocrity; nothing to distinguish him from the "average" man.

But we, his friends, can look back upon him and let the thousand and one little incidents of school days and college comradeship drift back into our memory, and somehow these little, almost trivial, recollections form themselves into a strong, forceful and noble portrait and unwittingly the words are forced from us, "There will never be another Pat."

In his Junior year he was chosen editor of THE FORDHAM MONTHLY, the second editor of the magazine who was not a Senior. Towards its fame and success he bent all his energies, imbuing also his associates with the same idea. Besides editing the MONTHLY, he acted in the capacity of Managing Editor of The Ram, and almost every issue of Fordham's weekly contained one or more editorials from his pen.

He interested himself in debating, and his keen arguments, with their forceful presentation, won him a place on the 'Varsity debating team which met Holy Cross in 1918.

We have said that he was different from most of his classmates. He was, above all, reticent and unassuming and far from talkative. He would stand, listening in silence to a discussion, until some remark contrary to his well-informed ideas was made. Then, with a slight curling of his lips and one quick flash in his eye, there came his answer-sharp and to the point; expressed not in poetic generalities, but in a clear and forceful manner, pertinent to the question.

For, as he grew older, he thought more deeply. It was difficult to mention any sUbject with which his intellect had not wrestled and upon which it had not formed clear-cut ideas. And to these he held, not, however, with the belief that infallibility was invested in him. He stood ready to be convinced, and, on matters of religion, to be corrected by his superiors.

But it was not often that he was found in error. For he was surrounded at home and at college by Catholic influences, and he surrounded himself, in his reading and in his free time, by all that was pure and true, so that behind all his thoughts and it is but necessary to read his editorials to prove this there shone forth sound Catholicity and unswerving devotion to truth and honor and purity.

In these few, simple words, then, let THE MONTHLY and Fordham pay tribute to Jim Pryor. Had he lived, his essays might appear once more on those pages unless, indeed, he was studying in the Seminary, for the priesthood was his ambition and hope. We cannot eulogize at length one who so hated a bathetic display of sentiment while he lived. We can only repeat-"There will never be another Pat."