became Chairman of the Board and of the Executive Committee. In 1921, New York Trust merged with Liberty National Bank of New York. Harvey Dow Gibson, the former president of Liberty, became president while Buckner succeeded Bannard as chairman of the board. The merged company had capital of $10,000,000 and "undivided profits and surplus of nearly $20,000,000" and occupied offices that had been prepared for Liberty in the American Surety Company Building at 100 Broadway. In 1919, he was named a director of Interborough Rapid Transit Company, replacing Daniel G. Reid. New York Clearing House In October 1931, Buckner was elected to succeed Jackson E. Reynolds (president of the First National Bank) as president of the New York Clearing House. He was reelected in 1932, and served in the role until October 1933 when Buckner retired (in accordance with custom), and was succeeded by George W. Davison (chairman of Central Hanover Bank and Trust Company). In 1933, the failure of the Harriman National Bank and Trust Company resulted in a government suit in equity seeking $9,375,000 against the twenty member banks of the Clearing House to compel them to keep assurances of the Clearing House to protect depositors of the Harriman bank under certain conditions. During the trial before the New York Supreme Court in 1936, Brucker (whose bank was one of eleven which paid up their share before trial), testified that "the refusal of two of the banks caused all of the banks to repudiate the assurances given to the Federal Controller of Currency." Depression relief efforts During the Great Depression, Brucker "was the originator, organizer and driving force behind virtually every cooperative effort by the Wall Street bankers to meet the tide of deflation." In 1931, he helped organize and served as president of the National Credit Corporation, a "$500,000,000 bankers' pool which was a forerunner of the RFC, he helped to save hundreds of small banks throughout the county." In 1932, he was an organizer and president of the Commodities Finance Corporation, and in the same year he was "one of twelve bankers and industrialists serving on a committee formed by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to aid the Federal Reserve System in a credit-expansion program." Also in 1932, Brucker was being selected by the ten banks with deposits of more than $150,000,000 as their only nominee for membership on the new State Banking Board,