I Blame MCR and Imagine Dragons for this. Sorry it's short, but please take the time to review.
Disclaimer: I don't own Newsies.
Specs doesn't mind Davey. He really doesn't. He respects him, he thinks he's a good leader. He thinks he's a good guy.
That doesn't stop him from resenting him.
Before David, Specs was the smart one. He was the one they asked if they didn't understand what the headline said. He was the one they teased about his brain. Before David, and after David, was how he thought about his life.
Now, in the time after the strike, after David took on Goliath. ( See, Specs knows things) Specs has been reduced to nothing but a pair of lousy glasses. Reduced to nothing but the old blind man whose past his prime.
He knows he's not the only one. He sees it in Romeos eyes when Race calls Les his little brother. He sees it in Race, who misses the time when he was equal to Jack in the eyes of the younger newsies. The strike changed them all, and not just for the better. All the younger newsies will hear stories about Jack Kelly and David Jacobs, who took down the giant newspaper tycoons, with the help of the beautiful and talented Katherine Plumber. No one would hear bedtime stories about Romeo, Mush, Specs or Snipper, background characters without even a last name.
Specs thinks Brooklyn has it better. They will forever be seen as the people who saved the strike, and rallies the other boroughs to Jacks aid. At least they don't have to live in the shadow of the great David Jacobs every day.
Specs hates it, but he isn't just jealous of David's fame. He's jealous of his family, jealous of the fact that he gets the best of both worlds. He has his brothers to rough house with during the day, and a mother to comfort him at night. When Specs has nightmares of his old man, he wishes he and David could switch places. Wishes Davey knew what it was like to be whipped half to death. Then he remembers all David has done for them.
Specs wishes he knew what it was like to sit in a classroom, surrounded by knowledge of any kind. To be able to go to a library and read till the words swirl around in his head without being told to leave. Specs wishes people respected him the way they did David.
Specs wishes, and Specs watches. He lets his gaze follow Davey, try to understand how he did what he did. He practiced David refined way of speaking, careful not to say ain't, or knows. He wonders if it will make people take him seriously.
He knows it won't.
He's just a street rat, a street rat looking for a better life, just like the hundreds of people scrounging for a meal in the stinking streets of New York. He's got no value, he's just another newsie.
He tries to be okay with that, but the jealous always creeps up, crawls up his spine and whispers in his ear. He tries to be good, he really does.
So yes Specs doesn't mind David, but he sure as hell minds the fact that he isn't like him.