March 14, 1941 — Disappointment has met on disappointment

A week later the council had the bond resolutions back in front of it, and somebody had a suggestion: reduce the issue from $110,000 to $75,000, on the theory that a smaller number would be easier to pass in April.

On the morning of Friday, March 14, 1941, the day of the council meeting, the Tribune ran an editorial against it. There was not enough time, it pointed out, to substitute a resolution for the lower amount and still get the question onto next month's ballot; the council would have to go ahead on the original resolution or drop the matter altogether. And trimming thirty-five thousand dollars off the specifications, after the estimates and the study that had gone into them, would simply produce buildings that were inadequate again.

It was not a year, the paper allowed, that invited spending more public money than was strictly necessary.

"neither is it a time for false economy"

— The La Crosse Tribune, March 14, 1941

And then it said the thing that the whole of this page has been building toward. The residents of the north side and the south end, it wrote, had been faithfully patient through the years, waiting for the time when their libraries could come before the public as a clean, wholesome, worthwhile project — one that deserved the support of the whole community, and that nobody could call selfish or unreasonable.

"Disappointment has met on disappointment."

— The La Crosse Tribune, March 14, 1941

The proposal was up again, the editorial said, and on the verge of a crucial test before the council that night.