Entry in progress—B.P.
     
Bartleby.com
Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations.  1989
NUMBER: 1588
AUTHOR: Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)
QUOTATION: Will one of you gentlemen tell me in what civilized country of the earth there are important government boards of control on which private interests are represented? Which of you gentlemen thinks the railroads should select members of the Interstate Commerce Commission?
ATTRIBUTION: Attributed to WOODROW WILSON, at a meeting of bankers and the president shortly before he asked Congress to enact legislation creating a Federal Reserve System.—Carter Glass, An Adventure in Constructive Finance, chapter 7, p. 116 (1927, reprinted 1975).
This appears to be the origin of what is frequently quoted as “You don’t put robbers to work in a bank.”
SUBJECTS: Regulation
     
Amazon.co.uk
You don’t put robbers to work in a bank.
Decorated Mouse Pad
by SHOPZEUS
 
Google News Archive
17 March 1960, Sarasota (FL) Journal, “Broadway Beat with Walter Winchell,” pg. 14, col. 4:
Would you hire a bank-robber to work in a bank?
   
Google Groups: alt.quotaions
Newsgroups: alt.quotations
From: Grace McGarvie

Date: Fri, 26 Jul 2002 15:45:52 GMT
Local: Fri, Jul 26 2002 9:45 am
Subject: Re: banks?
 
You don’t put robbers to work in a bank.  American Proverb
   
13 February 2009, The Mirror (London): 
THERE is an old American proverb that says “You don’t put robbers to work in a bank” it’s just a pity our buffoon of a Finance Minister never heard it.
 
New Europe
Down with the bankers, loan sharks who swim on the land
Author: Andy Dabilis
21 February 2010
(...)
An American proverb once held that “You don’t put robbers to work in a bank,” but that’s where they are now. And not just in the United States.