After finishing his term as governor, he worked in the private sector and made an unsuccessful bid for the United States Senate.

[citation needed] Through his combined positions of power in the Ardmore National Bank and the movement towards statehood in late 1906, Cruce submitted his name to the Democratic primary for governor of the newly created state of Oklahoma.

With the increase in automobiles, the state legislature acted upon Cruce's commendation and established the Oklahoma Department of Highways in 1911.

Believing the state needed to take on a greater moral role, Cruce supported enforcement of blue laws.

Through specific legislation, Cruce and the state legislature closed businesses on Sundays, and declared prize fighting, gambling, bootlegging, and horseracing illegal.

The most famous of these events occurred when Cruce declared martial law in Tulsa to prevent a horserace from taking place.

Pioneering the movement to abolish capital punishment, Cruce commuted twenty-two death sentences to life imprisonment and only one execution took place during his administration.

If your organization would interest itself to the extent of seeing that such outrages as this are not perpetrated against our people, there would be fewer lynchings in the South than at this time ...[3]Congressional reapportionments nearly resulted in the downfall of Cruce's administration.

In 1912, Cruce vetoed a bill to reapportion the state into eight congressional districts designed to minimize Republican voting strength.

This veto as well as the Governor's attempts to abolish some public institutions for economic reasons, led the legislature to investigate the executive branch.