Page:Bertram David Wolfe, Jay Lovestone, William Francis Dunne - Our Heritage from 1776 (1926).pdf/21

 Rh to note the role foreign money played in insuring the success of the first American revolution. The French government spent at least 25,000,000 francs in financing the American revolution, to overthrow the government existing in America in 1776. It has been said by no less an authority than Admiral Mahan that the American revolution was really won on the high seas in the naval battles between the fleets of Spain and France on one side and Great Britain on the other.

Professor Edgerton has well summed up the role of foreign governments in helping bring the first American revolution to a successful conclusion when he said: "The war had lasted long enough for clear-headed Americans to recognize the extreme difficulty of bringing it to a successful conclusion without foreign allies."

The French fleet and French soldiers had much to do with the surrender of Cornwallis (defending the existing government) to Washington, champion of the revolutionary government.

Yes, our American bourgeoisie to-day would not like to confess to the workers that it was largely thru the alliance of our American forefathers with "foreigners," largely thru the use of "foreign" money that the first revolution was a success and that a goodly portion of the foundation for the development of capitalism in the United States to its present heights was thus laid.

The workers paid for and fought the revolutionary war.

The workers took seriously the slogan of the right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. While the wealthy stayed at home, or often hired substitutes to fight for them, the workers, the mechanics, the poor farmers had to go to the front. The suffering of the soldiers at Valley Forge defies description. At the same time the rich were waxing fat on fabulous war profits. Many of the leaders of the revolutionary movement in 1776 preached radical doctrines to the workers, but these leaders failed to put these doctrines into practice except against the British ruling class. Adams summed up the situation very well when he said:

"The petty aristocracy of clergy, loyalists, and merchants scorned the poor, had no belief in their political wisdom and at the same time was thrown into periodic panics on account of fear of them. It was all very well when the common people were to be goaded to action