1938-1939 — The people voted. Congress went home.

In the autumn of 1938 the question went to the people of La Crosse, and the people said yes. They voted a bond issue of $62,000 to cover the city's share of building the two branch libraries and buying the land to put them on.

The arithmetic was settled. The two libraries would cost $107,240 together: $48,258 from the federal government and $58,982 from the city. North side and south side, at last, both of them, paid for.

Then the bids on the bonds were rejected, because the government rescinded the grant it had already made. The reason was a technicality. The project was reinstated afterwards, but the money was never allocated again.

The applications sat in Washington for the better part of a year. On Saturday, September 9, 1939, they came back to La Crosse unopened, with a letter from E. W. Clark, acting commissioner of public works, explaining that Congress had gone home without authorizing the Public Works Administration to make any further allotments.

— E. W. Clark, acting commissioner of public works, September 9, 1939

Two years and a day after the trustees told the council they were ashamed, the north side had a vote, a bond, a price, two surveyed corners, a set of plans — and a closed file.