May 1940 — Eight typewritten pages, seven years apart

The Chamber's committee took several months over it. On the evening of Wednesday, May 29, 1940, at a dinner meeting at the Hotel La Crosse, the board of directors gave almost its entire two-hour session to the branch libraries, and then adopted the report unanimously. It ran to eight typewritten pages.

The four men who wrote it were S. E. Taylor, A. H. Sanford, the Rev. H. R. Kinley and H. G. Hayden.

Kinley and Hayden were the same two men the Business Men's Club had appointed to look into the north side library in 1933. Seven years later they were still writing reports about it.

The report reached two conclusions. The first was that the movement should begin at once, and that the case should be put to the people and to the council in the strongest possible terms. The second was that the council should be asked for a vote, and the people for a referendum, on a bond issue covering the cost of the buildings and the sites — or that some other way of paying for them be found.

"stated to the people and to the city council in the strongest possible terms"

— the Chamber of Commerce library committee, May 30, 1940

The committee was enlarged rather than discharged, and told to bring in labor and the other organizations of the city, so that the whole of La Crosse would be asking at once.