In 1928, the Master Builders Association and the Building Trades council (union) urged the City of La Crosse Council for not adopting a building code ordinance the home builders proposed two years earlier. The builders argued for the protection of citizens, saying nearly every city in Wisconsin had established a building code.
In other words, these builders and workers agreed to be regulated “to protect the public from inferior workmanship by both the contractor and workman. Many of the residences that have been built in the past few years have sagging roofs, cracked walls and foundations, which could have been avoided if we had a building code. This would protect the public from workmen and contractors who perhaps mean well, but do not themselves know the strength and durability of materials used in construction of certain kinds of buildings.
The general public is buying homes built by contractors or workmen who are inexperienced in the construction of buildings, having never used the new materials that are continually coming on the market and being now used in the construction of homes and other buildings.”
The head of the La Crosse Master Builders Association, Al Klich, to talk of unfair business practices that puts knowledgeable builders at a disadvantage. He called for, “a protection from unethical, unscrupulous builders who disregard common-sense rules of safety in building cheap, unsafe, haphazard homes, taking advantage of the lack of construction knowledge of those unacquainted with the actual construction of buildings.”
