This paper examines how class conflict affected US imperial expansion between 1898 and 1906. It focuses on West-Coast-based white merchant sailors and relies on union publications, legislative records, and congressional testimony to reveal how domestic class conflict shaped the boundaries, both internally and externally, of the emerging US empire. The struggle of the sailors’ unions over these imperial boundaries illustrates the real-life consequences they held for working people. These were not just abstractions. These lines often determined the type of labor systems under which workers would toil. Specifically, this article centers on the American Federation of Labor's successful effort to apply the Chinese Exclusion Act to the United States’ empire on the Pacific in 1902 as well as the Sailor's Union of the Pacific's unsuccessful attempt to apply exclusion to US-flagged merchant vessels. With that in mind, I argue that the line between domestic and foreign or nation and empire was a contested space of racially inflected class conflict. For white working people, the most pertinent question in the aftermath of the Spanish American War was not, does the constitution follow the flag? But rather, does exclusion follow the flag?

中文翻译：

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排除是否跟随旗帜？商人水手和美国帝国扩张，1895-1906

本文考察了阶级冲突如何影响 1898 年至 1906 年间的美国帝国扩张。它侧重于西海岸的白人商人水手，并依靠工会出版物、立法记录和国会证词来揭示国内阶级冲突如何塑造边界，无论是在内部在外部，新兴的美帝国。水手工会在这些帝国边界上的斗争说明了他们对劳动人民的现实后果。这些不仅仅是抽象。这些线通常决定了工人将在何种劳动制度下辛勤工作。具体而言，本文重点关注美国劳工联合会在 1902 年成功地将排华法案适用于美国在太平洋的帝国以及太平洋水手联盟。s 对悬挂美国国旗的商船的排除尝试未成功。考虑到这一点，我认为国内和国外或国家和帝国之间的界限是一个有争议的种族影响阶级冲突的空间。对于白人工人来说，美西战争后最相关的问题不是，宪法是否跟随国旗？而是，排除是否跟随旗帜？