The Late Victor Van Bourg

The Life and Death of a Lion

A A A Comments By Matt Isaacs Wednesday, Nov 3 1999

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I honestly don't blame Van Bourg for what seem to be heavy-handed attempts to maintain the labor status quo. I blame union dinosaurs who, over the last three decades, have been devoted to preserving their own power as the power of unions in general has diminished. I'll give Van Bourg the benefit of the doubt that while acting as an attorney for the unions, he was merely doing his clients' bidding, and, as always, doing it very, very well.

Van Bourg's oldest daughter was diagnosed with cancer. He was in Washington, D.C., last week when he heard her condition had worsened, and that she was near death. According to form, he pursued the objective of returning to her side with brutal intensity. He made it as far as San Francisco International Airport Tuesday night before he died of a heart attack, apparently unaware that his daughter had already passed on that afternoon.

Weinberg

Victor Van Bourg.

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Although I didn't know him well at all, I feel safe in saying this was a man with an unconditional loyalty to his family. This was, indeed, a lion who licked the cream from life's cup. Like my grandfather, perhaps he was just the sort of man who embraced his beliefs too tightly, who was good, by his lights, but perhaps not so unreconstructed as he believed.

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