However the outbreak of war destroyed communication between the chapters. Much of the ground that had been gained was unraveled during the Great War, leaving the FONI again centered in North and Central America, where the local chapters continued to flourish and grow.

"Noodles" Fagan at a gathering of the Young Peoples' Division of the Fraternal Order of Nonconformists, International, 1919

Under the homogenizing influence of the FONI the local nonconformist chapters cooperated in a course of political change. Nationally and locally, they spoke with a single voice for the encouragement of individualism. As stated in the Manifesto, "Individualism will not be secure 'til all are unique, as we are!" From Mexico to Canada, and in isolated regions of Europe, this same message resonated. In the boom of postwar expansion the cause seemed to be headed for new heights of nonconformity.

But all was not well at home. In 1911, while the Fagans were in North Africa, a new and similar-sounding organization had been founded by activist Horace Walpole Naylor. The Non-Conformists Union, a strictly American insititution, had been founded by moderate non-conformists on the model of the FONI. They concentrated their efforts in a single country and during the Great War that strategy allowed them to build a firm national infrastructure. In 1921 - just when the FONI was recovering from the setback of the Great War - the NCU's numbers for the first time exceeded the membership of the FONI. In turn, this threat to their established brand of individualism threatened the Fagans to such an extent that they concentrated their own efforts in North America.

The two organizations quickly became hostile. In areas where there were chapters of both groups there were frequent confrontations. Each accused the other of corruption and "mainstream individualism". Tempers were short and an atmosphere of danger clouded the two movements.