June 18, 1941 — Start the libraries

Four days later the Tribune lost patience.

The April referendum, its editorial of June 18 said, had been carried by a substantial majority and was a mandate to the Common Council: an expression in favor of buying sites and putting up two buildings, one on the north side and one on the south. Now, asked to carry out the wishes of the people, the council was wrangling over where.

Options were held on four sites and none of them commanded a majority. The dispute was not really about money — there was little difference in price, and the sites were within a few streets of one another. It was about location, and it was costing the city time on a project everyone agreed was a necessity.

This was not new, the paper observed. The same thing had happened when Central High School was proposed where it now stands.

"The swimming pool went begging for a site after the people voted to have it constructed."

— The La Crosse Tribune, June 18, 1941

The aldermen were not fighting the library, the editorial allowed. Every one of them meant to do what the voters had asked. They simply could not agree on a corner, and any of the four would have served the north side perfectly well. So why not a decision soon? Come to an early agreement, it urged, and get the thing started, so that it might be ready for use by the fall.