<P> As a result of the protectionist policies enacted by the world's major trading nations, the global merchant marine fleet posted no significant growth from 1870 to 1890 before it nearly doubled in tonnage in the prewar economic boom that followed . Only the United Kingdom and the Netherlands remained committed to low tariffs . </P> <P> In 1874, a year after the 1873 crash, the United States Congress passed legislation called the Inflation Bill of 1874 designed to confront the issue of falling prices by injecting fresh greenbacks into the money supply . Under pressure from business interests, President Ulysses S. Grant vetoed the measure . In 1878, Congress overrode President Rutherford B. Hayes's veto to pass the Silver Purchase Act, a similar but more successful attempt to promote "easy money". </P> <P> The United States endured its first nationwide strike in 1877, the Great Railroad Strike of 1877 . This led to widespread unrest and often violence in many major cities and industrial hubs including Baltimore, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Reading, Saint Louis, Scranton, and Shamokin . </P> <P> The Long Depression contributed to the revival of colonialism leading to the New Imperialism period, symbolized by the scramble for Africa, as the western powers sought new markets for their surplus accumulated capital . According to Hannah Arendt's The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951), the "unlimited expansion of power" followed the "unlimited expansion of capital". </P>

As the number of dropped in the south in the 19th century the number of rose