Because membership was open, a Commons Club could grow to a size unwieldy to govern, inadequate for forming close friendships, and unsuited to the effective advancement of their stated ideals. Factions and in some cases whole clubs split away and sought petitions from national fraternities or declared themselves a local fraternity. In 1905, ten members of the Middlebury Commons Club, including President George E. Kimball, left to form a new organization which later became the Kappa Delta Rho national fraternity. The weak organization of the Federation itself left it vulnerable to splits along competing visions. The never-solved problems of the national order included that of financial support of an adequate system of national control and chapter assistance, without so raising the cost of membership as to defeat the democratic principles of the order; and that of maintaining an efficient and progressive national administration, while still fostering freedom of action of chapters and of individual members. Most of the national officials, by terms of the constitution, were unpaid undergraduates with little power and with scant financial allotment. National control was entirely lacking. Local autonomy allowed the chapters to develop without any spirit of national unity.