JERSEY CITY, N. J., Mareh %.
(P.—Climbing through cold blue
skies more than five and one-half
miles over Jersey and Manhattan
‘today, Miss Ruth Nichols, Rye, N-
Y.. flier, whe holds coast-to-coast
speed marks, set an unofficial al-
titude recard for women.

The altimeter on her speedy
_Lockheed-Vega monoplane showed
nearly 30,054 feet. The sealed
-barograph’ placéd’ inthe plane by
the National Aeronautic associa-
tion immediately was shipped tc
Washingion for examination.
If it shows 28,074 feet, or more,
Miss Nichols will be awarded the
‘record now held by Elino> Smith,
young Long Island flier.

Miss Nichols was informed that
te attain recognition as the rec-
ord holder, she must beat Miss
Smith’s wark by more than 600
feet.

She took off from Jersey City
airport at 12°35 p. M.. and was
aloft 90 minutes. There was &
30-mile wind blowing when she cir-
cled the city, swung cver Manhat-
tan and started the long climb.

“Everything went fine,” she
said. “the engine worked perfect-
ity. I did not suffer any discom-

s

| fort.
| The plane was equipped with 2
'650-horsepower, Supe r-charged,
rine-cylinder air-cooled motor. It
is the same ship in which she set
| east to west and west te east
aes ae ee ee
 
Los Angeles, Aug. 28 (AP) —

A suit against E. L. Doheny and
the directors of the Pan-American
Petroleum Transport company by
etockholders of the latter corpor-
ation who allege that the share-
holders were the real losers in
the Elk Hills naval oil reserve
leasing scandal, was on file here
today.

The complaint, filed yesterday
in behalf of Frank H. Kunkel of
Cincinnati, and other sharehold-
ers, declares that the stockhold-
ers lost $10,000,000 as the result
of the cancellation of the fraud-
ulent lease. It asks that Doheny
and the board of directors be com-
pelled to render an accounting.

The $100,000 which was de-
livered to Albert B_ Fall, former
secretary of the interior, by E. L.
Doheny. jr., in the much discus-
sed “little black satchel,’’ was de-
clared in the suit to have been
the rightful property of the stock-
holders. An -aceounting of this
exchange, which the complaint
branded as a bribe, was demand-
ed,

The lease, which was negotiat-
ed in behalf of the government by
Fall, was cancelled by a decision
of the United States supreme
court after the Pan-American had
spent several million dollars to-
ward developing the Elk Hills,
Calif., oil reserve and on the
building of oil storage tanks at
Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

Kunkel’s complaint sets forth
that neither he nor any of the
plaintiff stockholders had = any
hand in the leasing negotiations.
Some time ago, aceording to the
suit, demand was made upon the
board of directors of the company
for the accounting but nothing
was done about it.

The suit demands that Doheny
personally be compelled to reim-
burse the stockholders for the al-
leged losses.
 