I dont' want to get bogged down in the precise motivations of Harry Smith in compiling his original Anthology (which are ultimately unknowable). That's not what I was getting at.

What I meant was that there's a qualitative difference between someone selectively curating from among his record collection and making that commercially available; and the kind of ethnographic scrupulousness that a folklorist would have in depositing warts'n'all field recordings in an archive.

Harry Smith was under no obligation to include anything on the Anthology that he didn't like, whether that was for musical or ideological reasons. I think his own taste in music runs through the Anthology pretty clearly in a way that is not the case on plenty of 'ethnographic' compilations I've heard. I'd be very surprised if he included any music on the Anthology that he didn't actually like.

All by the by really, as of course it's not Harry Smith compiling the new one: it's Dust to Digital. Who are quite correctly choosing to omit 3 tracks because they are repugnant while simultaneously pointing out there are places to hear them if you really want to. Seems sensible to me.