As of the 1919 United States census, Open Brethren accounted for 71% of a total of 13,700 brethren in the US in 1916, though only 61% of 473 assemblies.United States Bureau of the Census (1916). Religious Bodies, 1916, Part II: Separate denominations. Retrieved 12 June 2012.
Neatby comments, "The important point is that the Brethren in their first great emergency found themselves absolutely unprepared to grapple with it. They had no constitution of any kind. They repudiated congregationalism, but they left their communities to fight their battles on no acknowledged basis and with no defined court of appeal." Neatby 1901, p. 61 Neatby, William B. (1901). A history of the Plymouth Brethren. London: Hodder & Stoughton.
