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the nitrate film can be transferred to safety film. We will have accomplished two things.
We will have preserved for future generations the remarkable record of our life and our history of this 20th century. We will have preserved that forever.
And, we will have rid ourselves forever of the problem of the fire hazard and the explosive nature of the material.
I would like to observe this, Mr. Chairman. I say this because I have a feeling that this is of great importance. I hope I do not tread on the toes of other agencies, but it has been my observation that the major agencies of the Government, the Library of Congi^ess and the National Archives, which have the resiK)nsibility for this work, were created in the first instance for other purposes.
They both existed before motion picture film came into being. There is a tradition and a priority within those agencies to be concerned with paper. The records of our firet 100 years of this country existed primarily on paper until Mr. Edison came along and developed this highly flammable and quite remarkable device called motion picture film.
It seems to me if the Congress could encourage, by appropriation, a more equal and direct financial application to the problem of preserving film, that we would do great service to our countiy and to these agencies who have the substantial responsibility of safeguarding and preserving this material.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Preyer. Thank you, Mr. Stevens.
That was an eloquent statement.
T would like to ask Miss Gish this.
What is the current status of copies of your films ?
Do you know how many are in existence and how many have been lost as victims of time ?
STATEMENT OF LILLIAN GISH, ACTRESS AND LECTURER
Miss GisH. A great many have been lost, of course. I do not believe they appreciated film and its power, other than the men who gave film its grammar, form, and did the first historic film — I'm referring to D. W. Griffith's "The Birth of a Nation."
It went into towns and played to three times the population across this country and around the world.
It is a power. It is beyond anything I can explain. It has influenced the entire world.
I have been around the world twice in the last 4 years. As you come into port, every city looks like one of ours with tall buildings. We have to have tall buildings, particularly in New York where there is no place to go but up.
But here, around the world, in cities along the eastern coast of Africa, for example, from a distance they look like any of our cities.
Therefore, whatever film is is beyond words. Our great historians from the beginning of time have tried to make history visual with words.
We come along in the 20th century, and we have the visual form of history. Every war and every ^eace conference and every important