There was nothing to avenge with the Lusitania; we were violating neutrality and shipping weapons on an ocean liner. German embassy workers with placards warned Lusitania passengers that the ship was taking weapons into a war zone.
We should have declared war on Britain; they blockaded the German coast and wouldn’t let us (as a neutral) trade with them, then complained when Germany tried to prevent our trade with Britain in the only way they could.
I live with a dozen miles of two munitions plants that were targeted by German sympathizers when we were feigning neutrality; both the Canadian Railway Car Company in Lyndhurst NJ (nice cover name, no?) and Black Tom Island in Jersey City NJ were destroyed because they were making weapons for Britain (again, while we were neutral).
That’s the propaganda line. The Lusitania was an ocean liner of the Cunard Line, not a supply vessel. 128 American deaths went unavenged for two years, and to accuse them of somehow “violating neutrality” is a direct insult to them and their descendants.
An alliance with the Second Reich would have violated what the US stood for. If not for that Reich inciting Mexico, Wilson may have considered just that.