During the political attacks on communism and artists of the left in the 1950s in United States, Odets distanced himself from having used the 1934 strike. In the 1950s, in his testimony to the House Un-American Activities Committee, Odets denied that he had based his play on that strike or been to a union meeting of cab drivers. Odets said, "It is just something I kind of made up...I didn't know anything about a taxicab strike...I have never been near a strike in my life."