The Depression-inspired, anti-capitalist "We, the People" (1933) was a play particularly close to Rice's heart. It dealt with "the misfortunes of a typical skilled workman and his family, helplessly engulfed in the tide of national adversity," as its author described it. Rice engaged an activist-minded cast and noted set designer Aline Bernstein to design the fifteen different sets that the ambitious play called for. "We, the People" failed amid what Rice called "agitated" reviews. A 1932 trip to the Soviet Union and to Germany, where he heard Hitler and Goebbels speak, provided material for Rice's next plays. The Reichstag fire trial is an element in "Judgement Day" (1934), and conflicting American and Soviet ideologies form the subject of the conversation-piece "Between Two Worlds" (1934).