Grimm was one of the leading figures in Centralia. A local high-school football star and an All-American at the University of Washington, he had served with distinction as a U.S. Army officer with the American Expeditionary Force Siberia protecting the Trans-Siberian Railway during the Russian Revolution. To this day, the American Legion believes that Grimm was specifically singled out in advance as a target, especially since he had made a public speech about the "evils of the Bolsheviks" based on his experiences in Siberia, and was known to be strongly anti-IWW. The post-massacre Labor Jury of union leaders paints him as a lead participant in a Centralia Conspiracy who subverted his own men into attacking the Roderick Hotel. Wobbly-sympathetic author John Dos Passos ironically described Grimm as a "young man of good family and manners" in "1919", the second book of the U.S.A. trilogy, published in 1932.