Intelligent and Honest Radicals explores the Chicago labor movement's relationship to Illinois legal and political system especially as seen through the eyes of the Chicago Federation of Labor (CFL). Newton-Matza focuses on the significant era between the great strike in 1919 and Franklin D. Roosevelt's inauguration and the beginning of the New Deal in 1933. He brings to light a number of victories and achievements for the labor movement in this period that are often overlooked. Newton-Matza shows the Chicago labor movement as a progressive agency intent on changing the workers' world through words and peaceful actions, drawing upon their personal experiences and ideology.