Though some may see folk song, the basis of all music, endangered by motion pictures, Kurt Schindler, authority on ancient European customs and collector of folk music in other lands, believes the danger lies in another direction. "The young students, the modernists, in their great desire to keep up with the times wish to kill the old things." All the forces working in America to preserve folk song should share Kurt Schindler's fears. The press is cognizant of the farflung effort throughout the land. The _Atlanta Journal_ (September 19, 1928) says, "The collection and preservation of mountain folk music is a singularly gracious work and one of rare value to history. Collected in its natural environment, it is perforce authentic both in tune and idiom, and sincere collectors are not content with this alone--they complete the record by tracing the songs to their origins. Such is a most gracious work and one which lovers of beauty, whether music or in legend or in local history, throughout the South, would do well to imitate." Far removed from the metropolitan area where great singers interpret the simple songs of our forbears and urge the necessity of their preservation, an untrained mountain minstrel is lending his every effort to aid not only in conserving but in correlating as well the folk lore of the Blue Ridge Country. He is a kinsman of Devil Anse Hatfield and lives just around the mountain from where the old warrior lies buried. "Sid Hatfield never was mixed up in the troubles in no shape nor fashion," anyone can tell you. "He'd not foir a gun if you laid one in his hand. But just give him a fiddle! Why, Sid Hatfield is the music-makinest fellow that ever laid bow to strings. What's more he puts a harp in his mouth and plays it at the same time he's sawin' the bow. I've seen him and hear-ed him, many's the time." And so have thousands of others. For Sid Hatfield spends his spare time, when he's not working for the Appalachian Power Company in Logan County, West Virginia, making music first at one gathering, then another. Sid's repertoire is almost limitless. He plays any fiddle tune from Big Sandy to Bonaparte's Retreat. And when it comes to the mouth harp, Sid just naturally can't be beat. "I love the old tunes," he says, "and they must not die. You and I can help them to live. Let old rancors die, but not our native song."