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SMITH, HARRY ALLEN (1907 - 1976), American newspaper man and humorist, who gained national prominence with the publica¬tion in 1941 of "Low Man on a Totem Pole ", a diverting collection of autobiographical articles and interviews. Harry Allen Smith was born in McLeansboro, III. , on Dec. 19, 1907. A series of moves during his childhood took the family to Huntington, Ind. , where at the age of 15 he began his newspaper career. For more than a dozen years afterward he travelled around the country, working in newspapers. In 1929 he went to New York City, where he was a feature writer for the United Press (1929 - 1935) and the World Telegram (1936 - 1941). The success of "Low Man on a Totem Pole " led to other books generally in the same uninhibited anecdotal vein, including "Lost in the Horse Latitudes" (1944), "Rhubarb" (1946), and "To Hell in a Handbasket" (1962). He died in San Francisco, Calif, on Feb. 24, 1976.

Everybody knows by this time that we first met Lautisse1 on shipboard but few people know that in the beginning Betsy2 and I had no idea who he was.
We were on the Queen Elizabeth*, coming back from our first trip to Europe. It was on the second day that I ran into him sitting in a quiet corner on deck4. He gave me a nasty look. I started to back away mumbling an apology and then his expression changed.
"Wait! " he called out. "You are an American? "
His English was good, and he asked me if I had a moment to help him with a small problem. He wanted lo know the name of some United States Senator5 for the ship's daily crossword puzzle. I sat down and puzzled over the thing. The definition was, "Senator who crosses a river. " I thought of Senator Ford, but there were no Fords on the passenger list, and then I got it — Senator Bridges. There was a Miss Ethelyn Bridges on board.
1 didn't see him until next day, just before lunch, when he came into the main lounge, caught me by the arm, and whispered "Look! " In his big hand he was holding a man's wallet made of pigskin. "The prize! " he said. "See what I've won! But for you, though, I would have never solved the puzzle. Come and have a cocktail with me. "
I went with him to his state-room6, and he got out a bottle of brandy.
He introduced himself as Monsieur Roland and kept thanking me for my help with the puzzle. Then he began asking me some questions about myself and my business, and I told him I sold oil-burners.
We sat there talking, and finally he asked me if I could keep a secret, and then he said, "I am Lautisse. "
I told Betsy all about it, so after lunch we went up and talked to the ship's librarian, asked him a few innocent questions and then dropped the name of Lautisse. We were greatly impressed by what we heard. We found out that my new friend was probably the world's greatest living painter, that he had given up painting and was heard to say that he would never touch another brush as long as he lived. Betsy talked me into sending a note to his cabin, asking him around for a drink.
Well, we got to be real friendly. He planned to spend a month in New York, and it was Betsy who suggested that he came up to our place for a weekend.
Lautisse arrived on the noon train Saturday and I met him at the station. We had' promised him that we wouldn't invite any people in and that we wouldn't try to talk art to him. Driving out from the station I asked him if he wanted to do anything in particular, like play croquet or go for a swim or a walk in the woods, and he said that he just wanted to sit and relax. So we sat around all afternoon, and Lautisse looked at a ball game7 on television for about five minutes, and couldn't understand it, and I took him to my shop and showed him an oil-burner and he couldn't understand that either.