From the April 30, 1906 NYT:

The surprise of San Francisco at receiving only $300,000 in cash out of the $2,500,000 appropriated by Congress for its relief has created only astonishment here, and the question on every side to-day is, "What did San Francisco expect? Did she think Congress meant to hand out dollars to her people?"

If that was the expectation in San Francisco it never had the least chance of realization, for it has not for a moment been the intention of the War Department authorities to do anything of that sort. The army has had sufficient and bitter experience in the distribution of money for relief. The result of such action in Porto Rico (sic) was to pauperize instead of relieve the people it was intended to assist.

Later in the story, the government's actions post-SF quake are put in historical perspective:

Congress has never before done anything like what it has done for the relief of San Francisco. On a small scale it has made appropriations to cover the issue of tentage and rations by the army for sufferers by floods in the Mississippi and Ohio River Valleys, but even that had been stopped, and nothing had been appropriated for that purpose during the last eight years.

After the great Boston fire there was no application to Congress for any sort of aid, and none was given. After the Chicago fire Congress passed an act admitting building materials for use in the reconstruction of the city free of duty. At the time of the Johnstown flood Congress was not in session, and when it reconvened it did nothing about the disaster. Similarly it was not in session at the time of the Charleston earthquake. When it met after that disaster it voted money for the rebuilding and repair of the Government buildings which had been damaged, and that was all.