Totem Column

The Low Man on a Totem Pole last week turned columnist. H(arry) Allen Wolfgang Smith, 33, who went to work at 16 on the Huntington (Ind.) Press, made lis name working for U.P. and the New York World-Telegram with such gems as a story of a nudist camp (written stark naked on the scene), weather reports ("WEATHER NOTE: Bad for grandmothers"), an interview with Simone Simon. (Without a word he tickled her vigorously. When she protested but did not squeal, he said he was only testing a Hollywood report that she was ticklish.) His book, Low Man on a Totem Pole, based chiefly on risque versions of whimsical features written for the New York World-Telegram, was a best-seller last spring.

Topics during the first week of his column (The Totem Pole), syndicated by United Features: a Chinese restaurant "ploplietor" who gives tips on Tiger Bone Wine; a waiter philosophizing on John D. Rockefeller's money worries ; an original account of how General Sherman coined the phrase "War is Hell."

Of columning, Smith says: "Just between you and me it's tough. A typewriter can be a pretty formidable contraption when you sit down in front of it and say: 'All right, now I'm going to be funny.' "

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