The journalistic genius of the little editor almost immediately gave the paper first rank in importance among all the papers then published in the country. Some of his admirers have said that “he became the master of a style of composition that compared favorably with that of Junius.”[367] However that may be, he unquestionably was forceful, entertaining, and at times, eloquent. He could be dignified and argumentative without being dull. He knew how to appeal at once to the lover of pure English and the uneducated artisan of the city or the frontiersman in the wilderness. He was a pioneer among the journalists who have known how to produce a paper that would be as welcome on the library table of the student as in the hut of the farmer on the outskirts of civilization. The secret of his strength was his direct method. There was nothing of equivocation or compromise in his character. He did not qualify away all force for the sake of conservatism. He liked to cross the Rubicon, burn the bridges, and devastate the country. Any one could understand precisely what he meant. He was intense in his convictions, and he had the audacity, inseparable from political genius, to move in a straight line, prepared to meet the enemy even on ground of the latter’s choosing. His gift of satire and sarcasm was a joy to his fellow partisans who delighted in him. At first intended as their spokesman, he became their leader. Politicians soon learned that it was not necessary to carry suggestions to the editor of the “Globe”--they went to his sanctum to get them. Capable of a skillful use of the rapier, he preferred the meat-axe. Nothing pleased him so much as the crushing of the skulls of the enemies of Jackson, and if these should happen to be Democrats, all the greater was the joy of the operation.