Although politically inactive after retirement from his cabinet post in 1897, he did not disappear from the public eye. He was remarkably successful as a receiver in reorganizing three railroads and nursing them back to financial health. In 1905 he briefly shot into national prominence as a result of his investigations of alleged violations by the Santa Fe Railroad of the law prohibiting rebates. His findings implicated the company officers, and he insisted that they should be indicted. President Theodore Roosevelt refused, ruling that only the corporation should be held responsible for criminal acts.
Guilt is always personal.
This principle which applied equally well to officers of government was central to his thinking. Like his chieftain, Grover Cleveland, he also believed that public office is a public trust. Essentially conservative, he seemed troubled and perplexed by the new political trend, espoused by the Tom Johnson radical Democrats, toward direct democracy, economic equality, and humanitarian reform. Harmon served as governor for two terms, winning reelection in 1910 by a 100,000 plurality over his Republican rival, Warren G. Harding. During these four years he put in order the state administration, exposing a major scandal in the corrupt handling of state funds, eliminating peculation and waste in a half dozen departments, replacing the incompetent with competent men, and elevating the tone of govern- ment.