Was the us tricked into entering World War 1 or did you enter for legitimate reasons?

Answer 1

The reasons were good enough. The Zimmerman telegram disclosed a cynical plot by the Germans to foster a war between Mexico and the US. The US had fought Britain in 1812 over freedom of the seas, and German submarine sinkings were taking American lives. German saboteurs had probably blown up the "Black Tom" munitions loading port near New York City in 1916 with unknown loss of life. A Europe dominated by Wilhelmine Germany was not a pleasant prospect. The German policy of "schrecklicheit" ("frightfulness") had resulted in great atrocities against civilians in Belgium and France, real ones, not just propaganda. The cemeteries of Belgium are full of graves marked with stones bearing the inscription "Fusillee par les Allemans 1914" ("Shot by the Germans 1914"), right beside rows bearing the identical inscription but the date 1940.

More jaded observers have noted that France and Great Britain owed the US a vast amount of money by 1917, so allowing those nations to be defeated and possibly to default on their loans might not be a good idea. As it turned out though, US participation in the war amounted to throwing good money after bad, financially.

Many Americans nevertheless felt they had been hoodwinked, not by Allied propaganda urging active American intervention in the war, but by their own government. Woodrow Wilson had campaigned for reelection as President in 1916 with the slogan "He Kept Us Out of the War". Presidents were sworn in on March 4 in those days, and on April 4, 1917, one month after beginning his second term, Wilson asked Congress for a Declaration of War.