garrison was not an abolitionist who became a publisher, but a printer who became an abolitionist. garrison was a typesetter and could run a printing shop; he wrote his editorials in "the liberator" while setting them in type, without first writing them out on paper. this helped assure the viability of "the liberator", and also that it contained exactly what garrison wanted, as he did not have to deal with any outsiders to produce his paper, except his partner knapp, with whom he eventually had a falling-out. he was a man armed with the copy machine of the times. like the other major abolitionist printer-publisher, the martyred elijah lovejoy, a price was on his head; he was burned in effigy and a gallows was erected in front of his boston office. and while he was relatively safe in boston, at one point he had to be smuggled onto a ship to escape to england, where he remained for a year.