They decided to boycott british goods. This plan back fired. And didn't help the situation. More soldiers were sent to the colonies. And the Quatering Act required them to house and feed them.
The sinking of the Lusitania in 1915 enraged american opinion of the German Empire. This sowed the seed with the then Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan, a pacifist, resigning. FYI the Lusitania was a British ocean liner that ferried american and Europeans across the Atlantic.
