How can one use evil to accomplish good?

     Within the novel, All the King's Men, one of the most loved (or possibly hated, depending on whose perspective we choose to perceive it from) characters is Boss, otherwise known simply as Willie Stark.  From what information we can gather from the narrator, Jack Burden's, unfolding of Willie's past and Jack's-as well as Tiny Duffy's, who becomes as pivotal character at the end-first meeting with Willie at Slade's place, Stark seems like an impoverished but rather hardworking and dedicated fellow who has tried hard to make a difference in his own life as well as the lives of others around him, despite the many discouraging obstacles he has had to overcome.
     Yet, in the novel, when we first come across him, as Jack Burden (the narrator) describes Stark as speeding along the highway with his posse of followers on a rare visit to his rural hometown, Mason City, and his father, Old Man Stark, we are left with both negative and positive conflicting impressions of him.  From the beginning, when he steps into the crowded store in which his own picture hangs reverently on the wall, to the later respectful silence he commands from the crowd as they anticipate his speech, we are able to clearly feel his domineering, almost dictatorial, presence (no less dissipated by the name others call him-"Boss") in the novel.  In addition, his hope to help others and allow all to have equal opportunities, especially in terms of the poor and uneducated versus the rich and elite, is shown through his urge to help his old friend at the store find a competent lawyer for his son's trial.  However, the actual actions he takes to ensure this leave a decidedly negative, forceful, and perhaps even a bit brute-like, impression of his current personality in our minds.  From the curt, decisive way he utilizes his own power to help his old friend by commanding Burden to execute the task of finding a lawyer through the less-than-honest way of manipulating the lawyer's desire for fame, to the harsh castigation he delivers upon Tiny Duffy when Duffy opposes Stark's use of his own power to help his old friend's son, we are able to see Stark's negative side in his forceful, and perhaps a bit rash, personality that seems will stop at nothing to attain his goals.  Thus, even from the beginning of the novel, we are able to observe that although Stark sincerely wants to help the less advantaged, and in a sense do good, just as Adam Stanton wants to by healing the sick through his surgeries, the methods he uses throughout the novel, from blackmailing to unfairly utilizing his own political powers, are less than respectable ways of achieving his goals of doing good and bringing about equality for all.
     Thus in describing this first incident-that foreshadows how Stark deals with many crises throughout the novel, as well as the lowly impression many of the upper elite have of him (especially Adam Stanton and Burden's other acquaintances at Burden's Landing)-we are able to understand how Stark truly epitomizes one the many themes in this novel: that man must often do evil deeds in order to accomplish good and that a crime must sometimes be done in order to attain one's virtue.